


sending her children to war

by conchorde



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 18:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17208833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conchorde/pseuds/conchorde
Summary: She reached her slender fingers into the bowl and pulled out a single slip of paper. Looked out into the crowd, out to the children she was condemning to death and the families they would leave behind.Juno couldn't breathe.[Or; Mars holds the 93rd annual Hunger Games.]





	1. death, like always

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine: it's 2012 and the Hunger Games is still popular. Now imagine: it's 2018 and you decide to write a Hunger Games AU and publish it on the internet, because why the hell not. Sorry not sorry it's the most cliche but also? It's happening.
> 
> So please, sit back, relax, and enjoy this foray into the lovely world of AUs, brought to you by yours truly.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno makes a decision. Also featuring: old-Earth flamingos, the most beautiful skyline on this side of the galaxy, and crowds larger than imagined.

The deep red sand flicked across the Hyperion City dome. The sim-wind blew perpetual dust into every crack and crevice, buffeting against the legs of the inhabitants of Hyperion City as they made their way to the central square. Almost as if she was trying to protect her city. Almost as if she knew what was coming.

Almost as if she felt the loss every year.

Her inhabitants, young and old, heeded the call blaring every thirty seconds from the industrial-grade loudspeakers. They made their way to the square, their tired feet standing on the cracked cement, the dust settling into their wrinkles, their children cordoned off from their mothers.

Because there, on the central dais of the square, stood a clear bowl and one elaborate microphone.

“Wow, I’ve certainly  _never_  been going in this direction before,” said a familiar voice.

Juno felt a nudge of an elbow on his ribs as he scuffed his feet along the road. He turned, and saw the raised eyebrow of his brother. “Ben—”

“No, I’m serious,” Benzaiten joked blatantly. “What’s this all about?”

Juno ignored the glare of the girl walking next to them to the square, and pitched his voice low. “How many times is your name entered this year?”

“Just the once, Juno, you know that,” Benzaiten said, matching Juno’s tone. The rest of his words, the  _she would never risk me_ , went unspoken. “How many do you—?”

“I’m not deigning that with a response,” Juno scoffed, but  _twenty-four_ echoed in his mind. Twenty-three extra times his name could be drawn. Twenty-three extra times his name  _should_  be drawn.

(Just before their first Reaping, a few weeks after their twelfth birthday, Ma had drawn Benzaiten tight into her arms before they walked out the door, whispering  _don’t let them take you, Benten, don’t let them take you away from me_ softly into his ear _._  Juno had seen the tears streak down her face, her love expressed clearly in a way he hadn’t seen since he was four years old.

Just before their first Reaping, a few weeks after their twelfth birthday, Juno had looked expectantly at his mother after she released Benzaiten, and received a cold stare.

Just before their first Reaping, a few weeks after their twelfth birthday, Juno found he didn’t care if he lived or died.)

High above them, the face of the clock tower stared down, the minutes ticking as evenly as ever. The hands drew closer to noon with every second as the brothers neared the square.

“What do you suppose the theme will be this year, Juno?” Benzaiten asked, a little note in his voice, a little foreign laugh. Something Juno didn’t quite recognize, and Juno knew every facet of Benzaiten Steel because they were his, too.

“Death, like always,” Juno mumbled, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades, the Hyperion City dome amplifying the beams of the far-off sun, as always.

Ben rolled his eyes. “Sure, but where’s the  _pizazz_  in that? What’s the  _theme_?” he asked again, leaning forward, arms flung wide in his best imitation of Julian DiMaggio, and Juno got it. “What’s going to be the  _big story_?”

A chuckle rolled out of Juno’s chest, and Benzaiten beamed. “Don’t quit your day job, Benten.”

“Day job?” Benzaiten postured, that smile still cracking his cheeks, his mission accomplished. “I’m seventeen years old, Super Steel. What do you take me for?”

“The worst excuse for a brother I’ve ever heard of,” Juno deadpanned.

Ben’s smile grew a fraction of an inch wide. “Not just a brother, but a  _twin_.”

“Since when?” Juno retorted, trying to keep the smile off his face and failing

“Since always, Super Steel, because didn’t you know—?”

“No.”

“ _Didn’t you know_ ,” Benzaiten continued, undeterred, “that I’m older?”

“It’s not like you don’t remind me every four seconds,” Juno grumbled.

The laughter died on Benzaiten’s lips. They had reached the square.

“Do you ever think,” Ben said, his voice a whisper, his eyes glued onto that bowl, and dread crept into Juno’s lungs, “that it could be us, up there?

Juno pulled Benzaiten towards him, and Ben embraced Juno like he was his lifeline. “Every year.”

Ben took a deep breath and released his brother. “See you on the other side, Super Steel.”

“Always, Benzaiten.”

As one, they squared their shoulders. With the same movement, the same glint in their eye, the same dread in their step, they approached the Peacekeepers and presented their blood for identification. A single pinprick of a needle on their left middle fingers, and Juno and Benzaiten entered just as the clock struck noon.

The Peacekeepers, clad in reflective white armor, opened doors to Hyperion City Hall, and Maia King stepped out onto the dais. Long earrings flashing, elaborate headpiece making quite the statement— _was that an old-Earth flamingo or just the gaudiest hat Juno had ever seen?_ —Maia King was a fish out of water among the crowd, but she didn’t let it stop her.

She stepped up to the microphone, tapped it once with her long,  _long_  nails, and opened her mouth. “Welcome, esteemed guests. Welcome to the 93rd Hunger Games.”

Juno felt like he was going to throw up.

“What a beautiful day, isn’t it?” she continued, her voice echoing across the square, bouncing across the buildings and amplifying itself effortlessly through the assistance of several large speakers atop the podium. “I always love Hyperion City this time of year. That skyline is to  _die_  for—”

Maia paused for a half-second before some semblance of realization crept back into her features. Her lips parted in a neon-green lipstick picture of regret, visualized on a hundred screens across the square as the crowd collectively shifted. The uneasiness settled into the air.

 “Ha,” whispered Benzaiten to Juno’s left. Juno didn’t jump, he  _didn’t_. Juno hadn’t been surprised by something Ben had done in years. “To  _die for_. Get it?”

“Shut up,” Juno breathed, just a little easier than the moment before.

Maia swallowed heavily, as if she realized what she was about to do,  _but Capitol residents never really care, do they?_  “Let’s get to it, shall we?”

Juno clenched his fists inside his jacket pockets.

Maia reached her slender fingers into the bowl. She pulled out a single slip of paper. Walked the two steps back to the microphone. Flipped the paper open. Looked out into the crowd, out to the children she was condemning to death and the families they would leave behind.

Juno was sure his nails had broken the skin of his palm.

“The first tribute representing District Three will be Rita—”

A gust of sim-wind buffeted the microphone, muffling out the rest of the name, but Maia got her point across. The crowd shifted, the children murmured, and a short, rather plump girl stepped forward. Her hair was everywhere at once; her hands worried together. She was shaking as she walked the steps up the dais.

Juno exhaled.

Maia smiled at Rita as she came to stand on the stage. She didn’t quite make Maia’s shoulder. “Excellent, excellent. How old are you, Miss Rita?”

“Fourteen,” came the quiet reply.

A tight, neon-green smile flashed quickly. “Well, you’re certainly older than you look.”

With one quick pat on Rita’s trembling shoulder, Maia stepped back to the bowl. “The second tribute from District Three,” Maia King announced clearly, “is Benzaiten Steel.”

_No._

Juno couldn’t breathe. The world tunneled, going dark around the edges, losing the sharpness Juno relied upon. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t draw polluted air into his lungs; couldn’t see.  _Not Ben. Not Ben. I deserve this, not him._

_Not Ben._

All Juno could hear was the quiet gasp to his left.

“Guess there is no other side, Super Steel,” said Benzaiten softly, a halfhearted chuckle on his tongue.

“Benzaiten Steel, come forward please.”

Juno heard the crunch of Benten’s shoes on the pavement. Felt the warmth that was his brother, his constant, his better half, leave him.

“No,” Juno felt himself say. Distantly, as if though underwater. “ _No_.”

“Benzaiten Steel,” repeated Maia King, and Juno did the unthinkable.

“I volunteer.”

It came out garbled and half-incoherent, but he said it.

“Excuse me?” Maia King asked, shock evident in her voice.

Juno grabbed his brother’s wrist, pulling him back. Facing the platform, he half placed his body in front of Ben’s, his shoulder pressing back upon his brother’s, bodily blocking Ben from sight. Ready to take the hit or the shot or the blame. Like every day, like always.  _This will make it all even._ “I volunteer as tribute.”

Benzaiten turned towards him, eyes wide, and there was an expression on his features Juno wasn’t familiar with. Resignation mixed with surprise mixed with shock mixed with a whole dash of—

Benten hugged him, crushing his ribs, his lungs. “Juno.”

“Better me than you,” Juno whispered back, before the Peacekeepers grabbed his collar.

His feet felt like leaden weights as he climbed the steps to the dais.

“A volunteer!” Maia said, delighted, as Juno reached the microphone. “And what’s your name, dear?”

“Juno Steel,” he said dully, trying to his tone even, trying to keep out that rising ball of anxiety and regret in the back of his throat, all tied into one.

“I assume you two are related,” Maia continued, a little laugh in her voice. “The name and the whole…everything.”

“Yes.”  _How could she think otherwise?_  They were two sides to the same coin, two mirrored reflections of each other. Two halves that made a whole, about to be broken.

“Well, you’re so similar, I almost couldn’t tell you apart! It’s almost as if there’s no difference in tributes at all.”

“He doesn’t deserve this,” Juno said, and his voice was as sharp as the metal of the surname he bore.  _I do._

(Juno never knew when to hold his tongue. He knew this, had been taught by the back of his mother’s hand since almost— _almost_ —before he could remember. He had tried and failed and just found it to be a part of him, but  _damn_  if he didn’t wish then and there that he had learned that lesson.)

Maia made a strange sound, as if she were being strangled by a stray cat. “I—I’m sure—”

Juno just let her fluster and stared out at the crowd. It was bigger than he’d imagined, the entire population of Hyperion City crammed into one city block, all peering at him carefully. There, his eighth grade teacher. There, the woman who sold flowers on the end of Juno’s block. There, the unfeeling gaze of Sarah Steel, before she turned her back on him.

Juno found Benzaiten’s eyes, the ones so similar to his own. They mirrored each other in all that they did. The trembling stance, the clenched fists, the single tear tracing its way down Juno’s cheek.  _I’m sorry_ , Juno tried to say, but the words didn’t come out.

After a long moment of backtracking and stumbling over her words, Maia King cleared her throat. “Well, District Three, I present to you: your tributes for the 93rd Hunger Games: Rita” —the microphone had a bolt of static— “and Juno Steel.”

Hyperion City was silent; she knew she was sending her youngest off to war.

 _This will make it even,_ Juno kept repeating in his head as he stared at his city, at that glorious neon-lit skyline that was the most beautiful on this side of the galaxy for perhaps the last time.  _I deserve this. Better me than Ben. I’m why we ended up in Oldtown._

_This will make it even._

* * *

“You have ten minutes for visitors,” grunted the Peacekeeper who had escorted Juno before stepping out into the hall. “Make it quick. We have a train to catch.”

Juno was only alone for a moment. He had time to make out the faded ghost of the guard’s outline through the frosted glass window, time enough to take in the fine leather seats of the visitation rooms in city hall, but not enough for his thoughts to swirl about his head. Not for his dread to build more than it already had—anxiety trembled through his stocky frame, coursing through every bone and sinewy muscle.

 Someone burst into the room. They embraced him so tightly Juno couldn’t rightly tell where his body ended and theirs began.

 “Don’t you dare leave me, Super Steel,” his brother said into Juno’s hair, and Juno shattered.

Juno squeezed his eyes tight, trying to swallow back that ever-present lump in the back of his throat. “Be—Benten, I’m so—”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Benzaiten whispered hoarsely, his voice breaking. “Don’t you  _dare_.”

“I’m sorry,” Juno managed, and Ben pulled back in order to look at Juno. “I’m sorry for leaving you.”

“It’s not your faul—”

“Yes, it is,” Juno said, a hint of anger in his. “I’m leaving you with  _her_.”

Juno watched Benzaiten swallow hard. “She’s never—”

“Doesn’t mean she won’t—”

Ben covered Juno’s hands in his. “She wouldn’t.”

 _Goddamn_ if volunteering wasn’t the most selfish thing Juno had ever done. Leaving Benzaiten behind. Benzaiten. Benzaiten “Who Can Do No Wrong” Steel, Mr. Galaxy’s Best Smile _, the only son their mother had ever loved_ , behind.

“One day, she’s going to do something really goddamn stupid,” Juno spat out, and  _shit his voice was shaking, wasn’t it?,_  “and I won’t be there to stop—”

Benzaiten laughed.

His brother, his twin, his better half, had the  _audacity_ to laugh at Juno.

Juno’s thoughts whirled to a halt. He blinked. Once, slowly. “Wh—what?”

“Super Steel,” Benzaiten said, and that same smile was back, making dimples on his cheeks. “You  _volunteered_ for the Games, and you’re worried about me? Don’t be. I’ll be fine.”

And then, Juno couldn’t help it. That classic Steel smile, rarely gracing the stage of Mars these days, peeked out from behind Juno’s curtain.

(Back when they were young, back when the Steels still lived in Halcyon and things were, well, better, their neighbors used to comment to Sarah that they couldn’t tell the difference between her boys.  _They’re identical_ , they’d say.  _They’re the same child. How do you do it?_ And Sarah would toss her head back and laugh.  _Well,_ she’d explain, that same smile she passed along to her children caressing her lips, her voice forever telling fantastical stories that enchanted the entire nation,  _Juno is Benzaiten but on a ten-second delay._ )

His brother’s smile faded. “I’ll be fine, but…why, Juno?  _Why did you do it?_ ”

“Better me than you, Benten. This will make it even.”

Benzaiten’s brow furrowed. “Make what even?” Juno could tell Benzaiten was trying to keep his voice level. “What, winning Mr. Galaxy’s Best Smile back in grade school? That I can do a pirouette and you can’t?  _What_?”

“All of it,” Juno said flatly. “Oldtown. Ma. Every time you took a hit meant for me. All of it.”

“Juno, I—” Benten looked like he wanted to say more, but  _how do you follow that_?

Juno swallowed hard.  _Goddamn_. “Speaking of, is…she coming?”

Ben breathed in sharply. Stared at the wall behind Juno’s head. “No. She gave me a message to give to you, though,” he said, but then the words failed to come.

“What did she—”

“It’s not worth it, Juno.”

Something deep inside Juno, something hidden behind his sternum, locked away and twisted with blood-red—something he didn’t know was still intact—splintered. Juno turned away, not trusting himself to look at his brother just then. He laughed bitterly, coldly. There hadn’t been joy in that laugh in a long,  _long_ time. “Can’t even come say goodbye to her son?”

“Juno—”

“What was she going to say?” Juno saw Ben open his mouth, but he plowed ahead, trying vainly to bandage that crack that ripped through his chest. “No, wait. I think I know. Was it ‘good riddance’? Or ‘thank god he volunteered’? Or—?”

“Juno,  _stop_ ,” Benzaiten put his hands on Juno’s shoulders, dug in his fingers, and Juno remembered to breathe. “It doesn’t matter.”

The gruff voice of the Peacekeeper from outside the door mumbled, “One minute, Steel.”

And  _goddamn_ , there the tears came. Fast and thick, twin rivulets from the old-Earth seas trailing down his face.

“I’m so sorry, Benzaiten,” Juno said, his voice breaking, and the words just kept coming. “I’m so sorry your name was called and that I volunteered and for Ma and for Oldtown and for leaving you and—”

Benzaiten embraced Juno again. “It’s okay, Juno,” he said, barely getting the words out.

“Time’s up, Tribute,” said the Peacekeeper, and Juno saw his shadow move to stand.

“Come home, Super Steel,” Benzaiten whispered into Juno’s hair as the door opened. “ _Goddamnit_ , you come home, Juno, or I’ll drag you home myself.”

The Peacekeeper entered the room. “Your ten minutes of visitation is over.”

Juno took a deep breath and made to stand. “See you on the other side, Benzaiten.”

Benzaiten smiled through his tears. “Always, Juno.”

Juno looked back once, after the Peacekeeper took his arm roughly and pulled him out of the room. Looked back, and found his mirror doing the same.

Waving a hand goodbye.


	2. molded in their image

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno meets a friend. Also featuring: granite soldiers, a long knife, and a chainmail warrior.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I'm writing this faster than I thought! Enjoy, and happy new year. Here's hoping a certain Peter Nureyev comes back in 2019.

From any angle, Hyperion City really was quite the view. That skyline was the source of jealousy of every business magnate from the galaxy half over. Green and blue and pink, all tied into one glorious neon hue emanating from the twisting spires of downtown. The deep, friendly firelight of Halcyon. The steep gray of Oldtown, just there, on the outskirts of the dome. And that dome surrounding her, that never-ending city of the future, _shit_ , it was something else, wasn’t it? That not-quite-clear, not-quite-blue shield protecting the inhabitants of Hyperion City from radiation across the dusty red planet.

She had heart, Hyperion City, there was no denying it. Heart that worked its way gently into Juno’s with gentle touches. The gilded dome-scrapers in midtown; the Venusian stews and Jovian gels of the international bazaar that maybe was run on the black market, maybe wasn’t; the pulsing lifeblood of the city, running deep through every street and alleyway. Juno found it in every iron-forged grimace and in every dusty parasol in the fraying outer dome, where Juno swore he could see out from behind that ever-blue sky to the horizon that seemed to reach beyond. To where Juno and Benzaiten could have held hands with the stars if they had tried hard enough.

Juno’s fingers gripped the armrests of his seat on the Utgard Express—the bullet train that would take him straight to the Capitol—and watched his city fade into a red-tinged sky with every click of the train on the magnetized track. As much as he denied it and hated it and swore he’d get out of that godforsaken neon landscape the first chance he got, _goddamn_ this wasn’t what he had meant.

A soft intercom bell chimed in his empty cabin. Juno jumped. “We will be passing through District Seven, the Valles Marineris, shortly. Please remain in your car. Expected arrival at the Capitol is six hours, seven minutes.”

Juno stood in one fluid movement. He couldn’t stay alone in that cabin for six whole hours. It was too grand, too opulent. An array of books lined the metal walls; a display of hors devours sat in the corner. His eyes swept over card decks and notebooks and maps of Mars. There was even a goddamn _chandelier_ hanging from the ceiling of the car.

A game of chess was ready to play on a nearby table as Juno swept by, with the granite soldiers lined up for ritual sacrifice on a checkerboard. (Juno tried not to see himself in the pieces. Not a bishop, not a king. A pawn, only moving forward until his crowning as queen and victor or his death— _somehow, he hoped it was the latter_.) He reached a hand out to the ornately carved wooden door of his car— _damn_ , the Capitol spared no expense—but it slid open of its own accord. Before Juno could even be surprised or on edge, a ball of energy barreled over him, talking a mile a minute.

“Gosh, I’m so sorry!” she said, her hands gesticulating wildly as Juno pulled himself up from the floor, where he’d half landed after she’d burst into Juno’s car. “I didn’t even see you there, mister—”

“It’s fine,” Juno cut in, ready for her to continue on her way and forget him, like every passerby on the street, but she just kept going.

“…I mean, I _was_ looking, of course I was. I’m always paying attention, aren’t I? Nothing gets past _me_!”

Juno looked down to her. She barely came up to his shoulder but her voice really suggested otherwise. “I’m sorry, who—”

“…and of course,” she continued, flipping her curly hair out of her eyes with a flourish, “I’ve never been out of District Three before—well, except for that one time my gran took me out to Olympus Mons for fried pretzel bits, but that was _one time_ and it wasn’t even that spectacular. Wait no, those pretzel bits were the _absolute best_. Everyone in the WHOLE ENTIRE _GALAXY_ needs to try them! Have _you_ ever had fried pretzel bits?”

She paused just long enough for Juno to open his mouth and stutter out an incoherent syllable or two before she continued on, undeterred.

“Well, of course you wouldn’t,” she said, simultaneously patting his arm and pulling him down to sit on a couch with her, “you don’t look like you’ve _ever_ been even out of Hyperion City before, mister—”

Juno felt a spark of annoyance. “Wait, wh—?”

“…so I just _had_ to stay in my car for at _least_ the first thirty minutes because how _else_ was I going to see that skyline? It’s on every stream in downtown these days, and oh, did you _see_ the drama on last night?” She threw herself back dramatically on the couch, staring intently into the ceiling. Juno wasn’t quite sure what to do. “I just could not _believe_ that the princess was _actually_ THE THIEF!” The girl suddenly took Juno’s hand in hers and threw her other hand across her forehead. “But it was oh _so romantical_ , don’t you think?”

And now, she paused and stared at him, her eyes wide, expectant, inches from his. Juno shifted uneasily, his hand still caught in hers. ( _When was the last time someone other than Benten had embraced him out of kindness?_ ) “I didn’t—”

“ _WHAT_?” She shrieked, and pulled herself away from Juno. “You don’t watch THE _STREAMS_?”

Juno sputtered. “I—”

She huffed out the angriest little breath Juno had ever seen and crossed her arms. “That’s _it_! I don’t think we can be friends.”

Juno blinked, and said flatly, “who the _hell_ are you?”

Just like that, the lightbulb spark inside the girl sitting next to him reignited. “So glad you asked. I’m _RITA_ ,” she exclaimed, like she was proud of it, and stuck out her hand.

_Ah_. He did know her. She was just very…different than up on the dais.

“Juno Steel,” he muttered back—his name was a curse, always—and they shook.

“Well, I _guess_ I can forgive the oversight of you not watching the streams, Mister Steel,” Rita said very seriously, still shaking his hand, “if you’ll be friends with me.”

Juno carefully extracted his hand from hers. “You’re the other Tribute, yeah?”

She nodded solemnly. “It will be my great honor to carry the banner for District Three with you, Juno Steel.”

“You can call me Juno,” he replied uncomfortably.

“I was taught by my mother to _always_ respect my elders, Mister—”

“I’m, what, three years older than you?” Juno shot back.

“…and besides,” she continued, undeterred, “you just _look_ like a Mister Steel. Oh, _OH_ —can I call you _boss_?”

Juno sighed. “Rita.”

“Hey, I mean, you volunteered for the Games, didn’t you? You’re _somewhat_ in charge of your destiny. Unlike the rest of us,” she said, and something other than enthusiasm finally crept into her voice.

Juno suddenly had the strong desire to punch the Gamemaker and _every single goddamn member_ of President Pilot Pereyra’s council who put that fear into Rita’s voice.

“Fine, sure, whatever,” Juno grumbled, acquiescing, and Rita beamed.

“Knew you’d come around to it, boss,” she said, and leaned back into the couch. She closed her eyes, at ease that Juno had accepted her rather forced hand of friendship. “Plus, you just cut a rather dashing figure, Mister Steel. It _warrants_ me only calling you by your last name, don’t you think? Where’d you get that bruise, anyway? It makes you look rather…heroic, if I do say so myself.”

Rita reached out a hand to his cheekbone, to the dark bruise that marred his cheek, and Juno flinched back just a hair. A minute movement that any other person wouldn’t have noticed— _he had trained himself to hide it_ —but he saw Rita register the movement. “It’s nothing, Rita.”

Rita frowned. “I don’t care, boss, but the Capitol sure will.”

Juno waved a hand away, not looking at her. “Don’t they have creams and surgeries and all that?”

“I mean, sure, but—”

And now Juno was the one still going, the one who couldn’t be stopped. The words just tumbled out of his mouth. “Why would they care? They can hide anything, right? Any past flaw, any scar or broken nose or goddamn _bruise_.” Juno saw Rita shrink back from him, apology clear on her face, but he kept spitting out the words. “They won’t even care. The Capitol has _never_ cared. But why even bother, right? Why try to hide it? I’ll be dead within a month and she won’t be able to—” Juno bit his tongue, the sting of his mother’s hand still fresh in his mind.

“The Capitol may have never cared before, Mister Steel,” Rita said softly. “But they do love a good story.”

Juno laughed, and bitterness rose in his throat. “Don’t we all.”

“She’s right, Juno,” said a deep new voice and the pair looked up, startled.

“ _Mister Ramses O’Flaherty_ ,” Rita gushed, admiration written in her eyes, and it all clicked into place.

Ramses O’Flaherty had just walked into Juno’s cabin. Winner of the 25th Hunger Games. Winner of the First Quarter Quell. He was famous in District Three, all right. The kind of famous that put him in the government-mandated history books, even the outdated ones with the cracked covers and missing pages Juno read from in Oldtown.

Rita shot to her feet and shook O’Flaherty’s hand rigorously. “Oh my _god,_ you’re the first winner from District Three. Look, Juno. It’s _Ramses O’Flaherty_. _LOOK_! I can’t believe I’m shaking your _haaaaand_.” She drew out the word, her awe evident in every facet of her tone.

Ramses chuckled. A nice rich laugh, rising from his chest. One Juno remembered from the streams, when he saw them. “It’s lovely to meet you, Miss Rita.”

Rita looked like she was going to faint. Juno felt like he was going to throw up. “ _Mister Ramses_ ,” she oozed.

“If you don’t mind, Miss Rita, I’d love to speak to my Tribute in private,” Ramses said gently. “Your mentor is waiting for you back in your cabin.”

Juno heard hear squeal all the way through the train door. He liked Rita. He couldn’t help it. ( _He could already imagine the canon shot in the arena, and loathed that memory before it happened._ )

“Do you mind if I sit, Juno?” Ramses asked, not unkindly, and Juno shrugged. Ramses heaved out a sigh, lowering himself down onto the grand leather couch in Juno’s train car. “Tell me about yourself, Juno.”

It was not a question.

“I bet you can figure it out,” Juno bit off.

“Sure, you volunteered for the Games, but what else, Juno? What have you got that everyone else doesn’t?” The _how can I sell you, your personality, your smile_ was implied.

“A blatant disregard for my well-being.”

The two of them sat in that for a moment, the silence complete between them, before Ramses said, “You don’t like me, do you?”

“I’ve heard about you,” Juno said sharply. “Killed seven tributes to win the First Quarter Quell through reverting the lightning strike to the metal in their suits. The first winner from District Three. Donated all of your winnings to charity, then went off the grid for a while. In the running for Hyperion City mayor a few years back. Impressive.”

“Everyone knows my name, Juno. Why waste time on humility when you can have fame?”

“Maybe if you want to make friends.”

“I have a few close advisees. But let’s get down to it, Juno: you don’t like me.”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“You don’t have to like me, Juno,” Ramses said, and Juno looked up at that, into Ramses O’Flaherty’s tired blue eyes _._ He’d mentored over thirty years of tributes after he came back to District Three. Those eyes had seen a lot of death. “We just have to work together to better your chances of survival. Be my partner in good.”

“Wh—what did you say?”

“Listen,” Ramses said, dropping his voice, his eyes glancing about the cabin for a moment, and suddenly Juno wanted to know what he had to say. “We both know the Capitol is running on borrowed time. So are you. What will you do with the time you have left?”

That same bitter laugh pulled itself from Juno’s chest. “Probably eat some decadent Capitol food, be interviewed by Julian DiMaggio, and die a senseless death on live television.”

“Maybe,” Ramses said evenly. “Maybe not. You want to win?”

“Sure, we all do,” Juno retorted, “but I won’t.”

“You know, Juno,” Ramses said, and his voice spoke volumes, “you remind me of an old Northstar Entertainment film.”

Juno just about rolled his eyes. “If you’re trying to win any favors by bringing up District Three’s most famous export, try your luck with someone else.”

“Andromeda and the Dragon. You’re familiar, correct?” Ramses began. Juno grunted his acknowledgement. He didn’t want to hear Sarah’s stories ever again. “The Chainmail Warrior. All she wanted was to return home. To Polaris. Do you want to go home, Juno? To your brother, to your mother?”

_Goddamn._ “I—”

“You’re easily the best sharpshooter at Oldtown High,” Ramses continued, and Juno shifted uncomfortably. _How the hell—_ “The first tribute to volunteer for his twin brother. People will love you, Juno. I think you’ve got a pretty good—pardon my phrasing— _shot_ at returning home. At seeing your brother again.” Ramses sat back and watched Juno carefully, his fingers steepled in his lap. “So, what do you say? Want to work with me?”

Juno pushed off from the couch. “Fine. _Fine._ ”

“I thought you’d come around, Juno.” He heard the smile in Rameses’s voice. “I’ll start working with the more reliable District Three sponsors as soon as we get into the Capitol. We might even be able to get you a cybernetic implant before the Games, if you wish. Maybe an arm or an eye or—”

“No,” Juno whirled around. “No way. Not while I’m still intact.”

“Of course, Juno,” Ramses said. “We’ll table the discussion until after the games.”

Juno scoffed. _No way in hell._ He spread his hands in front of him. “So how does this whole thing work? The Games? Do I get a partner or—”

Rameses’s eyes looked tired. So very tired. “You don’t know? There can be only one—”

“I’ve seen the Games, Ramses,” Juno spat out. “Even our shitty apartment has a screen. District Three installed them in everyone’s house about ten years ago.”

“Good,” Ramses exhaled, having avoided _that_ painful discussion. “If you and Miss Rita would like to work together, that can be arranged. But you will be judged individually by the Gamemakers and sponsors.”

“Fine.”

Ramses O’Flaherty, winner of the first Quarter Quell, legend in District Three, leaned forward in his seat. “So, Juno. Tell me about yourself.”

* * *

The bullet train reached the Capitol over dinner. Juno met had just met Rita’s mentor, Frannie—a short, chubby woman in her early thirties who had won her Hunger Games with a long, long knife—when the shining dome of the Capitol came into view.

“There it is,” Rita breathed, and her dinner was immediately forgotten as she glued her nose to the window. “Oh, Frannie, isn’t she beautiful?” Rita’s mentor came over to the window to point out the sights to her as their bullet train entered the dome. There was Millennium Park, up on zoned level fifteen. There, President Pereyra’s residence. There, Victor’s Walk, where one of them would stand and greet the Capitol, if they were lucky.

Juno pointedly ignored it. _The Capitol doesn’t care about you, no one ever has, why should they, you little monster?_

“Juno,” said Ramses softly from across the table to Juno whose mouth was full of his third dinner roll. “You know what happens next, yes?”

(In Oldtown, after, Sarah Steel hadn’t exactly gone looking for work. Sure, she’d taken on a spare cashier position or factory job when she could find it that brought a few delicacies to their table, but Juno had eaten more than his fair share of rough-hewn biscuits from their cloned tesserae grain. Had done what he could to keep the lights on. Had done what he could to keep his brother safe.)

Juno nodded, swallowing his dinner roll. His stomach turned at Rameses’s words. “What will they dress us as this year? Giant comms?”

With a squeal, the train pulled into the station. Juno finally looked out the window, and _damn_ , it was like nothing he’d ever seen. They said Hyperion City had the most beautiful skyline this side of the galaxy, but it paled in comparison to that of the Capitol through its crystal-clear dome. Juno could barely make it out against the pale blue of the sky. Its buildings towered inside the dome, their antennae nearly scraping the fragile technology protecting all of the Capitol’s inhabitants. They glittered, too, Juno thought. Futuristic and shining new and everything he wanted in a city. If there was corruption, he’d be hard pressed to find it at first glance.

Ramses had a little twinkle in his eye. “I’m no stylist, but I heard through the grapevine that they were going a little…nontraditional.”

The doors to their train slid open, and six Peacekeepers stepped aboard. Juno turned to his mentor. “Ramses, what the _hell_ does that—?”

Ramses just smiled as the Peacekeepers pulled Rita and Juno off the train.

They didn’t have to walk long. The guards brought the two of them to two waiting hover cars a city block or two away. Rita exclaimed the entire time about the streets and the buildings and _oh, Mister Steel, did you see_ but he stopped listening the moment he walked off the train, because _this was how they lived, this was how they spent their time and left the rest of us to rot_.

“In you go, Tribute,” said the Peacekeeper to his right, and Juno finally realized that he and Rita were standing in front of two different cars.

Juno tore his eyes to Rita’s. “Will I see her—?”

“Don’t be daft,” said the same Peacekeeper, shoving him forward. “You have separate stylists. You’ll meet just before the Opening Ceremony.”

Somehow Juno couldn’t breathe. When, over the period of those few hours, did _Rita_ become so important to him? “I—”

“Get _in_ ,” his other guard said as she pushed him into the car. The doors slammed shut of their own accord, and the car took off down the road, quickly joining the Capitol traffic for a brief moment before reaching their destination in a matter of seconds.

Juno’s stylist, after he’d entered the building and confirmed his identity with a blood sample and put on possibly the smallest dressing gown he’d ever seen, turned out to be a friendly-looking woman with the brightest blue hair he had ever seen. She sat him down in a styling chair and fussed over his appearance in a way that no one had before.

He followed snippets of the conversation, as she brought up various mirrors and tape measures and consulted with her team. “This bruise and this scaring here, here and here—“ She touched his neck, his back, his shoulders with a thin baton “--well, that’s easily-enough covered. A broken nose, now that’s a shame. There's not much hope for you. Shame we don’t have time for major reconstructive surgery to correct that break, but—”

Juno sat up at that. “Surgery?”

His stylist waved him back in his chair. He eased back into it warily. “Nothing to worry about, Juno dear. Just taking your measurements. We have a lot of work to do, darling.”

Juno had never worried that much about his appearance. He looked how he looked, scars and sweaters with frayed elbows and all. But g _oddamn_ , she wasn’t joking. They shaved and waxed and carefully sculpted Juno for _hours_ to become someone he almost didn’t recognize in the mirror.

“I present to you,” his stylist said, spinning him around after they dressed him and applied the brightest shades of lipstick he’d ever seen, “Andromeda, the Chainmail Warrior. Tribute from District Three.”

Juno took himself in as his stylist prattled on—all he gathered was that his and Rita’s costumes were meant to complement one another’s and that _as Andromeda was so well known, well, the sponsors just won’t be able to help themselves to want to get to know you_. The chainmail running along his arms and neck was hewn of fine electronics, a nod to District Three’s original industry. His dress was stunning, a mix of reds and golds, and blended seamlessly with the protective chainmail. His heels were sturdy and practical; just what Andromeda would have worn if she were real. With the decorative sword strapped to his hip and his shining silver ear piercings, he looked twice as beautiful as he’d ever felt, and twice as deadly.

Juno was truly his mother’s creation in that moment, molded in the Capitol’s image. He was all gunflint determination and trembling hands, and had never hated himself more.

“Well, what do you think?” his stylist’s team asked him, crowding around Juno in the mirror, anticipation of his response clear on their faces.

He knew he would wear it regardless of his opinions. “It’s spectacular,” Juno lied, and broke out the classic Steel smile.

His stylist tittered around him, making last minute touches before walking him to the door. His chariot for the Opening Ceremony was waiting, already in line, behind District Two and their probably terrifying Career tributes and—

“ _Rita_?” Juno rushed forward, leaving his stylist behind, throwing a _thank you_ over his shoulder.

Rita was dressed in shades of flames, with a ridiculous little hat on top of her head and the most spectacular facial makeup Juno had ever seen. The stylists had even done her fingernails to be sharpened to tiny points.

“I _know_ ,” she exclaimed, bouncing up and down from her position on the chariot. “I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT, MISTER STEEL! Me, as _Andromeda’s DRAGON_!” She squealed and flailed her arms about for a half-second, before she stopped dead, staring at him. Seeing him fully.

“…Rita? Did I do something wr—?”

“ _YOU’RE ANDROMEDA, THE CHAINMAIL WARRIOR?_ ” she shouted, and crushed him in a hug. “I’ve always _loved_ Northstar films, boss, but now look at us! We’re _them_! MISTER STEEL, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, I CAN’T _BELIEVE_ _IT_!”

Juno sighed, pitching his voice low. “Yeah, it’s real wonderful, isn’t it?”

Rita stopped jumping. “Don’t tell me, Mister Steel, that you don’t _LIKE NORTHSTAR MOVIES_?”

“No.”

She pouted. “Our friendship is officially over, Mister Steel. We are watching at _least_ _Andromeda and the Dragon’s Peak_ when we get home. You haven’t seen Northstar movies. How have you _lived_?”

Juno didn’t have the heart to tell her that they wouldn’t be going home. Or, at least, one of them wouldn’t. “I never said I hadn’t seen them, Rita.”

“ _WHAT_ ,” she shrieked, and their carriage began to pull forwards. Juno heard the distant drums and fanfare of the Opening Ceremony. A tribute in the carriage ahead of his— _was that a bionic arm?_ —glared at them, and with a nudge to the ribs, Rita sobered up. “I don’t know how I can be friends with you after this, Mister Steel.”

“I’m sure you’ll push through it, Rita,” Juno said, and the Opening Ceremonies began.

Their carriages rolled through those big double doors, the ones Juno had seen tens of times on that government-mandated screen installed just above the Steel’s warn kitchen table, and out to the waiting eyes of the Capitol. Juno felt like he was going to throw up for the second time that day. Thousands of eyes watched him and Rita in their flimsy carriage. Bright yellows and neon greens and shocking pinks littered the hair and eyebrows and sparkling clothing of the crowd. All yelling, all jeering, with their tiny opera glasses to get a closer look at the children brought to slaughter.

“And the tributes from District Three!” boomed the excited voice of Julian DiMaggio over the intercom. Juno made eye contact with the image of himself projected onto a huge banner. That fear didn’t belong in Andromeda’s eyes. “Don’t they look stunning this evening, ladies and gentlemen and esteemed guests? Why, is that…it is! Andromeda and her dragon! Spectacular work, as always. And the tributes from District Four right behind them! Take a look at that costume…”

Juno stopped paying attention. He could only hear the pulsing of his heartbeat in his ears— _they brought me here, they’re going to watch me die, but it’s really your fault, isn’t it, you little monster, you volunteered for this, you deserve to die, better you than your brother_ —which dimmed to a static, buzzing in his ears.

Juno couldn’t breathe.

_Goddamn_ , he really was going to die, wasn’t he? And these _people_ were going to watch and laugh and think no more of him.

A sticky hand gripped Juno’s, and Rita muttered, “you all right there, boss?” and Juno’s thoughts whirled to a halt.

_You did this for Benzaiten. He will live. He will make it._

_Better you than Ben._

“Yeah, Rita,” Juno replied, his chest just as heavy, but he was at ease with it, now, that weight on his sternum. “Thanks.”

Rita smiled a tight, watery smile. “Any time, Mister Steel.”

Their carriages pulled to the front of the long, long aisle, like twelve brides waiting for their grooms. The music swelled as President Peryera walked out onto that high balcony.

“Welcome, Capitol residents. Welcome to the Opening Ceremonies for the 93rd annual Hunger Games,” they announced to the crowed, their voice booming. “I wait for this moment every year, don’t you?”

The crowd cheered, deafening, and Juno felt sick.

“I look forward to getting to know these Tributes, as should you all. Only one of them will have the distinct honor of being the victor,” they continued, and a camera began to pan across the tributes. There, the frightened pair from District Twelve—the girl gave the camera a haughty stare; the boy next to her looked green. The camera continued along its path, staring down every tribute. “Hedge your bets, citizens!”

A second cheer rose up from around them, and President Pereyra smiled, basking in that glory.

The camera finished scan its scan of the tributes by centering in on Career tributes, those that had trained for their whole life for the Games. Those that were always the favorites to win.

High above them, on the silver screen wafting in the wind, a District One tribute smiled a shark’s smile behind magenta lips. Dressed cleanly, brightly, in the fine silks and diamonds of his district, the tribute looked born to play the role he stood in. His teeth seemed sharp enough to cut glass. He was deadly and wicked and cunning all tied into one. Like he had killed a man, stolen an entire art gallery and easily charmed half the galaxy before breakfast.

“Let the Games begin!” the President announced grandly, one last time, and twelve gunshots rang in the air, the drums began in earnest, the fireworks exploded.

Juno couldn’t pay attention. He swore that tribute was looking right at him.

And smiling.


	3. violence as a second skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tributes meet. Also featuring: doughnuts, the inner workings of every weapon Mars has ever possessed, and tales of galaxies beyond.

Everything was so goddamn excessive in the Capitol. The buildings, the cars, the people, the _colors_. Juno swore he had seen new shades of the rainbow overnight. In the eyeshadows and hair colors and sidewalks. Nothing was coated in that fine layer of dust like in Hyperion City that permeated every surface and every article of clothing Juno wore, nothing at all. Everything was pristine, colorful, and built on the backs of every District on Mars.

That morning, Juno walked out from his room in District Three’s suite ( _it was lonely, without Ben in the bunk above his_ ) to the largest spread of food he’d ever seen in his life. Sure, everything in the Capitol was so _much_ , but nothing more than the food. Pancakes and syrup, Terran fried dough and Jovian quail eggs, cloned fruits and yogurt.

He pulled out the last empty chair at the table, and watched with wide eyes as Rita applied the thickest spread of butter to her biscuit Juno had ever seen, topped it with cloned berries, and popped the whole thing into her mouth. “What?” she asked him, her mouth full, her words almost lost. She swallowed her breakfast, with some difficulty. “You ain’t never had biscuits before, Mister Steel?”

A smile cracked the corner of his lips. “Not like that.”

“Oh, well you _gotta_ try them, boss,” Rita said, her face the picture of seriousness. She handed him the plate of biscuits from across the table. “These berries are to _die_ for. And don’t even get me started on the doughnuts. I could go on for _days_ about the doughnuts. They’re so _soft_ and _fluffy_ and _sugary_ and—”

“Rita, dear,” Ramses broke in gently. She looked up abruptly, startled into quiet for once. Juno’s ears thanked him. “You aren’t here for just the food.”

“Oh, but _imagine_ if that were true, Mister Ramses O’Flaherty,” Rita began again with gusto. She plucked the biscuit plate right back out of Juno’s hands and dumped three more onto her plate. She reached over and grabbed a couple brightly frosted doughnuts, too. “Because I think I would be _so_ very happy to just stay here for the REST OF _TIME_!”

“I wish that were true,” said Rita’s mentor, Frannie, with a sad smile, and it all rushed back. This was no vacation from the dull monotony of life in Oldtown, of the same protein bars and incomplete homework assignments and sharp retorts from his mother and ducking the half-empty bottles of cheap whiskey dangling from her hand.

No, Juno was going to die here, at the hands of the Capitol. That was quite nearly for sure and certain. That same heavy weight settled back onto Juno’s sternum. The knowledge that _he was going to die and he was going to leave Benzaiten alone at her hands and there was nothing he could do to stop it_ uncomfortably enveloped the constant beating of his heart.

He spooned the blandest oatmeal within arm’s reach into his bowl and picked at it halfheartedly. “What’s today, then? We show the Capitol that we’re not just walking corpses?”

“Mister _Steel_ ,” whined Rita, on the verge of setting down the doughnuts she held in each hand. “You’re gonna make me lose my _appetite_.”

“Sorry, Rita,” said Ramses, “but Juno’s right.” Rita pouted at his words. “Two days of observed training. Get to know the other tributes—”

“Try not to kill them, more like,” Juno grumbled, sticking his spoon back in the bowl. There was no goddamn way he was going to eat.

Ramses shot a look across the table at Juno before continuing. “Don’t show off your skills, if you can manage it. You’re going to want to surprise your opponents in the arena. Get familiar with who you’d like as allies. This is all about survival.”

Juno crossed his arms, staring his mentor down. “And if we don’t want to make allies?”

“You’ve already got _me_ , Mister Steel,” Rita exclaimed, just about launching herself across the table at him, and Juno’s heart dropped. _Right_. If only he could volunteer in her place as well.

“Then you have a rough road ahead of you, Juno,” said Frannie, echoing Ramses’s tone, and Juno finally acquiesced.

Juno stared hard at the tablecloth. “ _Fine_.”

“I’m _real_ good at making friends, boss,” Rita said, patting his arm. “I’ve got us covered.”

* * *

The slim doors to the training facility slid open with a hiss. A throwing knife whirled past Juno’s vision, embedding itself into the far wall. Rita clutched Juno’s hand even harder.

“I can’t _believe_ Mister Ramses didn’t let me bring my doughnuts,” Rita whispered, and the pair stepped inside.

There were several stations, scattered haphazardly about the room with its vaulted ceilings and various levels. There, in the corner, tributes sparred, fast and dangerous. A shooting range, with an array of targets and well-stocked weapons: knives, bows and arrows, swords, blasters. Survival skills. Knot tying. Obstacle courses.

Juno wanted to walk right back out the door.

“Oh, _oh_ , Mister Steel, we just _have_ to check out the Poisonous Food Identification. I just _love_ food,” Rita said, tugging on his arm, and before he knew it, they were sitting at a table across from a dangerous-looking girl who was angrily—there was only one word for it, really—identifying plant projection after plant projection on a thin tablet. She looked up, once, at Juno and Rita, staring daggers, and correctly identified the next plant without looking at it. She seemed very, _very_ capable. Like she had never made a mistake in her life, or if she seemed like she had, it was actually what she intended the whole time. Like she was acquainted with the inner workings of every weapon Mars had ever possessed.

It seemed like she would make an _excellent_ ally.

“You haven’t made a mistake yet,” Juno said, and that Steel smile cracked the surface, ignoring Rita’s not-so-subtle shaking of her head.

“Don’t plan to,” she said, not glancing at him, continuing to flick through the projections.

Juno sat up a little straighter. “You sure about that?”

“Quite, thanks,” she shot back, and said no more.

_Well, that could have gone better_. “I’m Juno Steel. This is Rita. District Three,” he said anyway, against that constant _thump, thump_ of instinct, of warning in his ears, and stuck out his hand. _What the hell._

She finally looked up. Her eyes were flecked with determination, her jaw set. Already ready for a fight. She ignored his hand. “Do I look like I care?”

Rita stood quickly, her gestures wild. “We didn’t mean to bother yousorry _byeeeeee_ ,” she managed, her words running together. She pulled on Juno’s shoulder, hissing into his ear, “come _on_ , Mister Steel.”

Juno kept his hand extended, unmoving. “I just told you my name. Come on, I don’t get to know yours?”

“I don’t see why that’s relevant for you. You’ll be dead within the first five minutes.”

Juno’s smile widened. “Maybe. But I volunteered for these Games. Maybe I _want_ to be here.”

And there. _There_. A spark of…something else in her expression.

She grasped his hand. Shook it. Her handshake was firm. “Alessandra Strong. District Five. And you’re lying your ass off. No one wants to be here. Well, except for them,” she said, and jabbed a thumb over her shoulder to the corner of the room.

“The _Careers_ ,” Rita breathed from behind Juno.

Alessandra nodded, turning to look. “The Kanagawa twins are favored to win this year. Cecil and Cassandra, from District Two.”

The two were sparring brutally on the bold red mat while the guards watched, wary. They threw each other, twisted this way and that. Cassandra had her knee in her brother’s sternum, her long, acid-wash hair swishing behind her. In a flash, he grabbed her wrist and tossed her to the ground, bionic arm whirring around her fragile neck.

And just like that, the atmosphere in the room changed. Time stopped for a moment. Weapons ceased being thrown. The feeble attempts at fires went out. All eyes went to the siblings. Juno could have cut the tension with a knife. The guards stepped in close, stun guns at the ready, fingers twitching near the triggers, as Cecil stared his sister down, the intent clear in his eyes.

She tossed her head back and _laughed_ , and the bubble of time burst.

With a matching grin, Cecil reached that foreign cybernetic arm forwards and pulled Cassandra to her feet. The guards backed off, the puffs of smoke went back up, the knives sailed back through the room. The siblings stumbled off the sparring pad, no worse for the wear, clutching each other like they were their lifelines, and in that moment, _somehow_ , Juno missed his brother more than anything.

(For as long as Juno could remember, Sarah Steel had stories. They made their way out of her and couldn’t be stopped, the same way that the cold found its way into a drafty apartment in Oldtown. Juno and his brother had grown up on her stories. Needed them, the same way they needed food and shelter and an open space to run. She spun tales out of nothing but love, crafting incredible worlds, modeling them for her boys with rusted pans and well-loved bowls on the kitchen table. And so Juno and Benzaiten had played with the only stories they knew: Sarah’s.

They had found the corianders and pans and spoons just as Sarah had when trying to get the stories out of her head. Placed them on their own heads, tied towels around their necks and paraded around their apartment as Andromeda and Turbo and every other character she came up with in the dead of night.

Until, after.

Juno had so many memories of wrestling Ben to the floor of their tiny apartment, just like the Kanagawas had, but a little less deadly. A little less vicious. Playing as Andromeda while his mirror, his better half, his brother was her dragon, soaring high above Polaris. Until they saw the unhappy shoes of their mother, tapping her foot, and her stories were no longer permitted at home.)

“I’m not planning to get to know them anytime soon,” Alessandra said, turning back to Juno and Rita.

“Me neither,” Rita breathed, and clutched Juno’s hand just a little tighter.

Juno swallowed roughly, pushing away his memories. “What about the rest?”

Juno tried to keep his eyes from sliding to the left, to that same District One tribute standing at the edge of the sparring surface, looking lithe and deadly in all the ways that mattered. That magenta lipstick from the prior night was washed away all but in Juno’s memories. The thin knife he held seemed so… _natural_ in his grip _._ An extension of his arm, of his long fingers as he waited for his turn to spar. He wore violence as a second skin, and it fit him well.

But his bright, bright gaze cut across the room, boring holes into Juno’s chest. The tribute seemed to like what he saw in Juno, because that same sharp smile smirked its way across his features.

( _Juno quite suddenly found himself wanting to know what those teeth would feel like on his skin_.)

Alessandra scoffed, picking up her tablet once more, and Juno blinked. “I’m not here to make friends, Steel. Sorry if you got that impression.”

“Oh,” Juno said, and tried not to feel too crestfallen. “Right.”

“Nothing against you and Rita,” she said swiftly. “You both seem like lovely people.”

“Well, I sure _hope_ so,” Rita said defensively, and a hint of a smile appeared on Alessandra’s face.

“See you around, Alessandra,” Juno said, standing.

“Don’t think we’ve got much choice in that matter, Juno,” she said, flicking back through the plant identification. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Well,” Rita said as they walked away, in what she probably assumed from the streams was her best _sotto voce_ impression but Juno was sure the whole room could hear, “I think that could have gone better. You should have let _me_ do the talking.”

“Shut up,” Juno shot back.

Up a level, near the survival skills, a dejected pillar of smoke arose amidst a string of curses.

“Say, Rita,” Juno said as a fire-starter sailed down to land near their feet, followed by a halo of leaves. A frustrated cry sounded throughout the cavernous room. “I think it’s time we learned our survival skills.”

“But _boss_ ,” Rita whined as Juno scooped up the small rock. “Why can’t we go back to the berry identification?”

“If we’re going to make it,” Juno deadpanned, climbing the ladder to the second level, “we might as well learn how to start a fire.”

The string of curses increased in intensity as Juno pulled himself to the second level. There, a pair of Tributes sat, one consoling the other.

“I just can’t get it, Sash!” cried the boy from the Opening Ceremony who had looked extremely green, throwing himself onto his back. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

“Oh, get over yourself, Mercury,” snapped the girl sitting next to him. “It’s not that hard.”

Juno walked over, ignoring Rita trailing far behind—she was wallowing at the top of the ladder like climbing up a level was the hardest thing she had ever done, with a couple _Mister Steel, I’m rather upset I left my doughnuts behind_ thrown in—and held out the flint as a peace offering. “You might need this.”

The girl looked up. “Thanks,” she said, plucing it out of his hand, then looked expectant at him when he didn’t move closer. “What, you know how start a fire?”

“Sure,” Juno said, and crouched closer to their station. “A bottle of shit alcohol and a match.”

“Where’re you going to get matches in the arena?” she said, a spark of challenge in her voice.

Juno countered. “My education was a little lacking.”

“I bet mine was worse.”

“Seems doubtful.”

“District Twelve. There, I win,” she announced triumphantly, sitting back on her heels. “Can’t get more impoverished that that.”

Juno smirked. “I raise you one Hyperion City, District Three.”

“No way,” she shook her head. “District Three is electronics and—”

“Don’t say it,” Juno interrupted quickly.

“—Northstar Entertainment,” she finished, narrowing her eyes. Juno sighed. “Wait, weren’t you dressed as—”

“Northstar?” said a new voice, and Juno jumped. The boy who couldn’t start the fire was back. “ _Andromeda and the Sea of Sinners_ is my favorite.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be starting a fire?” Juno said monotonously, ignoring the rising voice of Sarah Steel in his head. The _little monsters_ when it was endearing, when Juno and Benzaiten would sit on her knees and she’d spin tales of galaxies beyond. And then when it wasn’t, when she used it in the same breath she cursed Juno’s existence and blamed him for _every goddamn thing,_ after.

“Wait, I don’t think we’ve met yet!” said the boy brightly, and Juno blinked. “I’m Mick. Mick Mercury! This is my best friend Sasha Wire.” She nodded her acknowledgement. “What’s your name?”

“Juno Steel,” he muttered. “Rita’s back there somewhere. District Three, like I said. You know how to start this fire?”

“Oh, no way, Juno. Sasha does, though. She’s the _best_ ,” Mick gushed, and with a flick of her hand and three strokes of a long stick in a pile of leaves, a little spark appeared. She looked knowingly over to Mick and Juno. “There’s not much she isn’t good at, honestly.”

“What about you, Juno?” she asked, drawing out those two vowels in his name. She looked at him appraisingly, and Juno knew his future was on the line.

“I’m not a half-bad shot,” Juno said, and Sasha’s mouth turned down.

“That it?” she asked.

“My mother always told me I was too observant for my own good,” he offered with a wry smile. “And I’ve got Rita. You’ll love her.”

“Mister _Steel_ ,” whined Rita as she finally made her way over and plopped down next to their makeshift fire. “I can’t _believe_ you left me _all to myself_. I could have DIED.”

Juno tried not to roll his eyes, and turned to the District Twelve tributes. Tried to keep those rising nerves out of his voice. “Told you.”

After a long, long moment of surviving Sasha’s hard gaze, she spoke up. “Well, show us what you’ve got.”

 “I—” Juno sputtered, taken aback.

“Mister Ramses told us not to show off our skills, boss,” Rita hissed into Juno’s ear.

His same self-deprecating smirk reappeared. “What the hell. Not like I’ve got any plans.”

Juno slid down the ladder to the main floor, ignoring Rita’s protestations and the rather wide-eyes of Mick and Sasha, that unsaid _damn, he’s going to do it, isn’t he_? Before he could lose his nerve— _ignore those stares, ignore the Gamemakers, ignore it all_ —Juno reached the weapons rack.

There were no blasters. Knives and throwing stars and bows with arrows, sure. But no blasters. Or, no. _That wasn’t quite right, was it?_

There was, in fact, one gun, hooked around the long index finger of the tribute from District One, who was lounging against the weapons rack like it was the most comfortable chair in the galaxy.

“Looking for this?” he asked, and his voice was as clear as a bell.

“Yeah, thanks,” Juno said, reaching for the blaster, trying hard to not look at him. Trying hard not to notice that otherworldly scent. Flowery and industrial, wood smoke and forests, all tied into one. Like nothing he’d ever come across in Hyperion City. _Goddamn_.

The other tribute pulled the gun just out of Juno’s reach. He showed those sharp teeth in a flash at Juno’s annoyance. “If I give it to you, what will you give me?”

“The hell do you think I have?” Juno muttered, reaching for the gun again.

He tucked it away from Juno’s sight with a flourish. “I think there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye,” he continued, and leaned in a little closer to Juno. (That otherworldly scent became ever stronger and oh, _oh_ , it was his cologne, wasn’t it?) He pitched his voice low, so Juno had to strain just a little to hear him. “A _lot_ more.”

“Yeah?” Juno challenged, the heat rising in his veins. “Here’s something for you: give me the _gun_.”

The tribute laughed. “I was only teasing, Juno. Here,” he said, holding out the blaster. “Let’s see how good you are.”

Juno felt his pulse race in his ears; he felt his face go hot. Juno snatched the blaster from the other tribute’s hand with a glare and snapped it to his dominant hand. He flicked the safety off; watched the indicator light flick from red to green. He felt four sets of eyes trained on him, felt the risk, but he raised the weapon—it felt so easy in his hand, so familiar—and let off three blasts in quick succession.

Juno didn’t have to look to know that he made three perfect shots. Three bullseyes.

(The only thing different from his makeshift range in that dark back alley in Oldtown was that he was firing towards human-shaped targets, rather than rusty tin cans, and that his blaster wasn’t from the sewers.)

 The District One tribute let out a low whistle between his teeth as Juno lowered the weapon to his side, flicked the safety back on, like he’d seen the HCPD officers in Oldtown do, like he’d taught himself. “Now, that was…quite something, wasn’t it?” he said, and there was something thick and palpable in his expression.

“I’ve heard it all before,” Juno said dismissively, but still felt that warm glow inside his chest at the praise. ( _What would Juno do to hear more words of praise drop from his lips? What would he do to see what…else those lips could do?)_ He glanced back, up to the Survival Skills level, and saw a few shocked pairs of eyebrows. Saw his new friends confirm their alliance.

“Don’t you want to see what I can do, Juno?” asked the tribute, and Juno remembered he was still there. Twirling a throwing knife between those long, long fingers. A visual threat of violence that Juno wasn’t quite sure if it was meant for him, but he didn’t know if he cared either way.

Juno shrugged. “Show me in the Games.”

“Oh,” he continued, and that wide shark’s smile was back behind those lips ( _god_ _what would Juno have done to kiss his lips?),_ “it would be my absolute pleasure, Juno.”

It wasn’t until after Juno was back upstairs, sitting around the mediocre fire with his new allies, hearing exclamations of his sharpshooting and friendships beginning, that he realized he never told the tribute his name.

* * *

The computer simulated-windows showed that it was late. The approximation of what the Capitol skyline at night would have looked like—had the Gamemakers trusted the Tributes enough to provide actual windows in their suites—showed a sprawling expanse of lights. Twinkling across every building, stretching for miles under that crystal-clear dome.

Juno hated every inch of it. Give him Hyperion City’s filthy neon skyline or nothing at all.

His internal clock, if it could still be relied upon from all those nights walking the streets of Hyperion, waiting for Ma to return home before him ( _and hoping to god that she wasn’t back early_ ), told him that it had been hours since Rita had bounded into his room to tell him goodnight. It was so damn late, but he couldn’t sleep.

The Games had always felt distant. Sure, Juno and Benzaiten stood in the central square of Hyperion City once a year, and sure, he watched his classmates be chosen, _but it always feels distant until it happens, right?_ But, shit, seeing those tributes wielding deadly weapons with such ease and the determination in their eyes put some other level of fear in Juno, something he didn’t know he still had in him.

Juno knew he was going to die. He walked around every day with that weight on his chest. Benzaiten deserved to live, deserved every ounce of happiness he stumbled upon. But Juno? He wasn’t quite sure how he made it to this point, how he hadn’t been gutted in some Oldtown alleyway and left to die. His mother certainly had tried her best on his behalf.

He wasn’t supposed to have made it this far, and now he could had the excuse to finally, _finally_ slip into that blissful oblivion but _goddamn,_ he didn’t want to, his heart just kept beating, didn’t it? _Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Not ready to die, not ready to die. Not yet. Just one more day. One more minute. One more—_

Juno needed to get out.

Quickly, quietly, as only years in Sarah Steel’s house could train him, Juno pulled on his boots and left his room. He padded across the abandoned living space, cracked open the door to the hallway, and made his way to the roof.

That blast of cold air as the elevator doors opened up on the twenty-seventh floor was welcome in Juno’s lungs.

Across the roof, a silhouette among the stars raised his head at the _ding_ of the elevator doors closing. Juno stilled as the figure rose and stepped into the light. The sharp jaw of the District One tribute was cast into harsh contrast with the sky.

“Can’t sleep either?” he asked, his voice soft, the violent persona of the tribute Juno had met left behind, down in the training room. Juno warily shook his head. The tribute sighed. “There’s a bench on the other side, by the garden. Walk with me?”

He extended his hand.

Juno folded his arms quickly, before he did something he’d regret. “Fine.”

The tribute retracted his extended hand after a moment. His lips turned into a tiny frown at Juno’s rejection, but he nodded, and the pair set out across the empty rooftop.

“What a beautiful night, isn’t it, Juno?” he asked, turning his face to the sky.

Juno stopped dead. “How the _hell_ do you know my name?”

That sharp smile was back. “I did research, Juno. Just like everyone else. Tributes are a matter of public record. It really isn’t that hard to find a name or two. And a name like _Juno_ —” he drew out the name, savoring the two syllables of Juno’s name like a fine wine ( _Juno had never heard his name savored like that before; he wanted to hear him say it again and again_ ),  “—well, you certainly remember.”

Juno scoffed. “You gonna tell me your name?”

“Oh, Juno,” said the other tribute as they reached the rooftop garden. He maneuvered his long limbs onto the bench just inside the garden. “I don’t tell just anyone my name.”

“All tributes are a matter of public record,” Juno countered, joining him on the bench. “I could look you up any time I please.”

“But you haven’t.”

“I could.”

He leaned back. “Oh, what’s in a name, Juno? It’s just a marker for a person. It doesn’t tell you anything about the life lived. About the _experiences_.”

“And what might those _experiences_ be?” Juno asked quietly, and he wasn’t leaning closer into that otherworldly cologne, he _wasn’t_.

“Well,” the other man said matched Juno’s tone. “I suppose I could show you—” He abruptly pushed himself back, “—but not until at _least_ the second date, Juno.”

Juno tried not to feel the hot flush of his cheeks. “I’d say _names_ qualify for a first date.”

“Oh, is this a date, now?” he raised his left eyebrow skeptically.

_Damn_ , he definitely was blushing now. “Isn’t a date usually two people, alone?”

The corner of his lips crooked. “Usually. And this is _quite_ the view, so sure. Let’s call it a date.”

“So,” Juno prompted, already kicking himself in the shins for this, for whatever this was devolving into, for that friendly warmth beginning just behind his sternum whenever he smelled that cologne. “Names.”

“Names,” he repeated. He took a moment to continue. Juno could see him wagering it, see the calculations flying in his mind, before he nodded sharply, as if to himself. He leaned closer, his lips barely moving as he whispered into Juno’s ear. “If you want to know my name, hold out your hand.”

Juno hesitantly extended his hand, palm up, ready to withdraw at the slightest jolt of movement. But the other tribute’s eyes were gentle and sure, and he carefully took Juno’s hand in his. His soft touches sent tingles down Juno’s spine.

There, in the cool night breeze, high above the Capitol, the tribute slowly traced the letters of his name into Juno’s hand.

_Peter Nureyev_.


	4. anticipation coursing through veins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final days before the Games. Also featuring: a steady stream of curses, the cocktail of the cosmos, and not-quite-right yellow pigment.

Juno’s footsteps echoed when he walked in for his evaluation. It was so goddamn empty inside. And big. His entire apartment building could have fit in the room if they broke off a few doors and windows, but that wouldn’t have been too amiss in Oldtown.

He heard the muffled laughter of the Gamemakers in their lounge a floor above him, sealed off from their Tributes through a thick pane of glass. It was probably blastroof. ( _Only one way to find out, right?)_

“Juno Steel, District Three, correct?” asked the ambivalent voice of Lorenzo Vega, Head Gamemaker, over the intercom.

“Yeah.” Juno glanced up. Vega wasn’t even looking down to the session floor; he had eyes only for the dessert bar at the back of the lounge.

“Get on with it, then,” Vega said sharply. “We don’t have all day.”

(When Victors became too prolific, too noticeable, one of two things happened. Peacekeepers either delivered a note to their families—their faces would freeze, just a little, before the dam broke, and they shattered—or the Capitol would recruit them.

Lorenzo Vega fell into the latter half. Juno had read about him the moment he was appointed Head Gamemaker, like every child on Mars. But Vega had put himself into the history books well before then, hadn’t he? Winner of the 42nd Games. Tribute from District Three. Affiliated with Northstar Entertainment.

After the Andromeda series made headlines across the dusty red planet, the Capitol had stepped in.)

Across the room, maybe fifteen meters away, stood three targets. Juno nearly scoffed. _Beginner-level_.

Juno walked over to the weapons rack; pulled off a blaster. He checked the blaster card as he rolled it into the gun. Seven shots were all he had to make his case to the jury. He toed the bright yellow line painted on the cement floor. Took one glance up to the lounge. Took one steadying breath.

And made three bullseyes.

The conversation stilled from the lounge. Juno spared a look. There were a few appreciative nods from the Gamemakers. Polite, but they were soon turning back to their desserts and drinks. It was nothing too out of the ordinary. He was, after all, following the Kanagawa twins.

_Fine_.

Juno spun on his heel and stalked the length of the room, until the targets were tiny on the horizon, their painted-on targets nearly indecipherable from the rest of their dark foam bodies. He heard a collective chuckle rise from the Gamemaker booth, a laugh that said _he’s not really going to try that; what a fool he’d be to try_.

And finally, _finally_ , Juno had a challenge.

With a breath that was more angry than steadying, Juno raised his blaster.

He made three perfect shots. He didn’t need to look. He knew from the silence from the Gamemakers’s booth.

“I know,” Juno said as he returned to the weapons rack to face the lounge. “I know, I’m amazing. I’ve heard it all before.”

He raised the gun and pointed its last blast straight at Lorenzo Vega’s heart _because he would decide Juno’s fate and he worked with Pilot Pereryra and he continued this sick tradition of stealing children from their homes and from their brothers and from their cities and futures_ and everyone in the room knew he could make the shot.

And Juno allowed himself the smallest smile.

He set down the gun, the safety back on, barrel still pointing at the booth, and strode out of the room.

* * *

“Mister Ramses,” Rita pleaded that evening from her position next to Juno on the couch. “I _promise_ I won’t do anything else.”

“No, Rita,” said Ramses with a stern frown. “You can’t just break into the Capitol’s security to change whatever score you _think_ the Gamemakers gave you.”

Rita turned to her mentor. “Frannie, _please_?”

She pursed her lips and flicked the screen on. “That wouldn’t end very well for you, Rita, dear.”

Rita flopped back on to the couch, turning her head to face Juno. “I can’t _believe_ they won’t let me make one _teensy tiny_ change in my score.”

“Because they’re being so unreasonable,” Juno deadpanned, biting his cheek to keep the smile off his face.

“ _EXACTLY_ , Mister Steel!” Rita exclaimed. “You see, Mister Ramses. Juno gets it.”

“It’s not that I—”

Rita shushed him loudly as the seal of the Capitol appeared on the screen installed above the fireplace. “It’s starting Mister Steel! It’s starting, it’s _starting,_ IT’S _STARTING_!”

Juno rolled his eyes at Rita, but bit back his retort as Julian DiMaggio walked out. “Hello, _hello_ people of the Capitol! It’s the day you’ve all been waiting for—”

“YES, IT IS!” Rita squealed. Juno elbowed her gently in the ribs.

“As you all know, the twenty-four tributes will be shortly entering the Arena. Only one will emerge as the victor,” Julian said seriously, his saffron-dyed hair bobbing with every word. “They have trained. Their talents were judged by our Gamemakers, and ranked on a scale of one to twelve. I have received a copy of the scores of each tribute.”

Rita clutched Juno’s hand.

“District One will start things off,” the voice of the Capitol began, and a photograph of a wicked-looking girl appeared on the screen behind him. “Miasma, with a score of nine.”

Frannie nodded, not surprised. “She’s a Career,” she said, glancing over at Juno and Rita. “High scores are to be expected.”

The portrait switched to a young man with a long neck, a straight jaw, and sharp teeth behind a practiced smile. He had the brightest eyes Juno had ever seen and lips that he desperately wanted to kiss.

“Rex Glass,” Julian announced, and Juno’s mind whirled to a halt. If this tribute smiling back at him was Rex Glass, then who the _hell_ was Peter Nureyev? “Glass has received a score of—” Julian paused. He peered closer at his paper, then gave a little shake of his head. “He has received a score of _twelve_.”

Ramses whistled. “Steer clear of him, Juno. The Gamemakers hardly ever give out twelves.”

Juno wanted to do the exact opposite.

Julian DiMaggio let out a nervous little laugh. “Well, that will _certainly_ be difficult to beat. On to the tributes from District Two.”

“I’m confused,” Rita crossed her arms. “How did he get a _twelve_? I thought that was…impossible, or something.”

“Not impossible, Rita,” said Frannie as Julian announced the Kanagawas both scored ten. “Just incredibly difficult.”

“The tributes from District Three!” Julian announced with a smile from the silver screen. “First, Rita—”

“That’s _me_ , Mister Steel,” Rita hissed under her breath.

“—with a score of four.”

Rita launched herself out of her chair. “I THOUGHT I GOT A _TWO_!”

“And now, for Juno Steel,” Julian continued, and Juno’s lungs forgot how to work. “He has earned a score of eight.”

Juno crossed his arms but a self-satisfied smile pulled at the corners of his lips. “That’s probably because I pointed a blaster at Lorenzo Vega.”

“You _WHAT_?” Rita all but screamed, and even Frannie looked at him sternly.

He shrugged. “I had a shot left.”

Rita’s mouth dropped open.

“What?” Juno asked. “It wasn’t like I took it.”

“You and I are having a discussion after this, Juno,” Ramses said softly, a hint of something dangerous in his tone, still watching the results come in.

 “Fine.” _His hands were not shaking, they were not, he wasn’t her, he wouldn’t—_

Juno swallowed, hard, and stared at the screen. He, Rita and their mentors watched the results roll in for the rest of the evening. A few more high scores appeared: Alessandra Strong, from District Five, earned a nine. Vespa, from District Six, and Buddy Aurinko, from District Nine, both earned sevens. The other girl from District Nine, with jagged teeth like a piranha, earned a ten. Sasha Wire received an eight.

After Mick Mercury’s score of two had been announced to the planet, Julian smiled widely. “What an amazing class of tributes this year. Some incredible scores in this batch, and we all get to meet them tomorrow! Thank you for tuning in, and have a lovely evening.”

The screen switched off.

“Well,” said Ramses, pushing off from his chair. “It’s late.”

“ _What_ ,” Rita whined, pulling a face. “Mister _Ramses_ , it’s barely ten o’clock!”

“Interviews are tomorrow, Rita. Let’s discuss your strategy.” Frannie smiled, holding out a hand to pull Rita in.

The pair headed for Rita’s room. “Can my strategy be—oh, _oh_ , I know—being the _cutest tribute_? I’d be the _best_ at that…”

The door clicked shut behind the pair softly.

Juno pointedly did not look at his mentor. He stared straight ahead, into the dying embers of the fire. His fingers dug into the couch cushion. _Goddamn, he had the same expression she always did, didn’t he? Stern and unforgiving and his cheek still showed that last bruise from her hand._

“Juno,” Ramses said softly, turning to face him.

He flicked his gaze up briefly. “What.”

“About your performance—”

“Spit it out already,” Juno bit off, and took some sort of dark joy in seeing that hint of unease on Ramses’s features. “Let’s get this the hell over with.”

Ramses faltered. “Juno, I’m not sure what—”

He set his jaw. “Just yell at me or—or do whatever the hell it is you need to do.” _The waiting was always the worst part._

“What you did today, in your testing simulation,” Ramses began, stepping forward ( _Juno tried not to move_ ), ”was absolutely incredible.”

Juno looked up at that. Wide eyes and all. “I—what?”

Ramses joined Juno on the couch. “I’ve wanted to do what you did to the Gamemakers for a very, _very_ long time. Give ‘em a good scare. Tell me, Juno, how did they react?”

“Sorry,” Juno coughed out. “I’m not quite past the whole ‘why aren’t you mad at me’ stage yet, Ramses. Give me a sec.”

“Juno, did you—” he had a rough time getting the words out “—did you think I was going to _harm_ you?”

A nervous smile graced the corners of Juno’s mouth. “Didn’t give me very many options, Ramses.”

Ramses looked at him with those old, tired eyes. “Juno, I would _never_. You’re my partner in good.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Juno replied. He took a deep breath— _she’s not here; stop seeing her in every shadow—_ and turned to his mentor. “I don’t think anyone’s surprised Lorenzo Vega like that in a while.”

“No, Juno, I don’t think anyone has,” Ramses said with a sad smile. “A shame if it affected your score.” Juno shrugged. “But excellent work. Just excellent. You put yourself on the map. The Gamemakers know who you are; your fellow tributes know what you’re capable of. Now all that’s left is to make the Capitol love you.”

“They’ll love Rita.”

“Of course, Juno,” Ramses continued, his smile fading. “But she can’t get you sponsors. She is, ultimately, your competitor.”

“Fine,” Juno said shortly, anything to get the phantom sound of the canon out of his ears. “What do I have to do? I’m not...I don’t make friends easily.”

Ramses leaned back thoughtfully. “Maybe ease off the cynicism and let Julian DiMaggio do the work. He’s—”

“Hey, I’ll try being nicer if they stop _killing children_.”

“I’m serious, Juno,” Ramses continued. “The Capitol does not react…well to comments upon how it runs its nation.”

_Well, that was a given_. Juno stood, done. “I can be charming and pleasant and _hell_ , I’ll be the best damn tribute the Capitol has ever seen. Anything else, Ramses, or am I good to go?”

Ramses cracked a smile. “That’s all, Juno.”

* * *

The lights on the Capitol’s most important stage were hot. Even off camera, Juno could feel the sweat pooling in the small of his back as he waited with his fellow tributes. Julian DiMaggio eased into his egg-shaped chair, looking intently into the eyes of the first tribute he was interviewing.

“Now, Miasma, darling,” Julian said gently, taking her hands in his. “Last question. You seem to be a _very_ capable girl. How do you think these Games will go for you?”

Miasma looked out to the audience, the thousands of the Capitol elite, watching with vapid expressions. Juno saw stomach-churning eldritch image, for a split second, of Miasma standing over him, growing as many limbs as the old terrestrial tale of Medusa. There was no fear in her eyes. “I will have what I want. And I want to win.”

“And so you shall,” Julian said with a nod. “Miasma, from District One, everyone!”

The audience’s resounding cheer was nothing more than a buzz in Juno’s ears, because Peter Nureyev stepped on stage.

“Welcome, welcome, Rex Glass,” said Julian, casting a hand to the now-empty seat next to him. Nureyev settled in, and in his clean-cut suit, he looked right at home. His single ear cuff glinted in the lights. Elegance suited him so very, very well.

He spread that same sharp smile behind those same magenta lips. “Glad to be here.”

“Tell me, Rex,” Julian began, leaning in a little closer. “How is the Capitol treating you?”

“Why, never better,” Nureyev said, that smile growing just a bit wider. “No place like it in the galaxy.”

“You speak as if you’ve traveled far and wide, Rex. That’s rather unusual for a Tribute like yourself.”

Nureyev paused, considering. He spread out his fingers. Crooked his neck. His lips parted, just an infinitesimal amount, and _goddamn, Juno wanted to know what he tasted like_. “Well, every kid imagines what the rest of the universe is like.”

And in such a fashion, Nureyev’s interview continued. Julian shot questions every which way, trying to get under Nureyev’s skin, trying to get him to reveal his secrets to the Capitol. Nureyev dipped his toes in the answers, revealing just enough to get the crowd curious about what the answers the depths of the man held, before moving on. He was laughed when Julian laughed, was serious when the crowd stilled. He was charismatic and engaging and everything the Capitol wanted in a Tribute.

But Juno thought he knew a lie when he saw one. They were hard to catch, his lies, blending so seamlessly in the skin he wore. But there was something a little unsetting about his answers, wasn’t there? Like someone had taken a masterpiece from a gallery and replaced a duplicate in the same frame. The hue of the yellow in the paint wasn’t quite right. The stroke of the brush wasn’t exact.

In the end, it was Julian who brought it up.

“Rex,” Julian said in the end of the interview, sounding out the name on his tongue. “That _is_ a rather unusual name, isn’t it? I’ve don’t think I’ve ever come across one like it in all my years at the Capitol.”

Nureyev leaned back in his chair, finishing the final touches on his persona of cards. “I should hope not. It means king, Julian. In a language long dead, spoken by those who came before us.”

“Spoken like a true king, then. I wish you the best in the Arena, Rex.” Julian turned to the crowd, and announced one last time, “Rex Glass, from District One!”

Nureyev stood, and Juno realized the difference between him and every other tribute he’d seen before on that half-broken screen in his kitchen.

Peter Nureyev looked at the camera like he was the predator.

* * *

The Kanagawa twins together followed Nureyev, and they were just as deadly and vicious in the interview as they were in training. Cecil was menacing and flamboyant, his cybernetic arm whirring and alien and doing the half of talking, but it was evident he loved the camera. Cassandra was a bit more aloof than her brother, avoiding Julian’s questions. There was an edge to her Juno didn’t care for, a glimmer of unpredictability.

With a round of applause, the twins left, and then it was Rita. After a few questions, she opened up, dropping her timid exterior. Julian almost couldn’t get her to stop talking at the finish of her allotted time.

“Oh, Mister DiMaggio, it has been an absolute _honor_ to share the stage with you,” she gushed as he tried to usher her off-camera. “I have _adored_ every single _moment_ I have spent talking to you. You are the most _spectacular interviewer_ I have _ever_ come across.”

He raised one eyebrow. “You’re interviewed often?”

She flushed. “Not at _all_ Mister DiMaggio. Not at _all_ , which is what made this so much _FUN_!”

“Rita, from District Three,” Julian announced one last time, and an usher gently pulled her off the stage.

That chair was now empty. It was Juno’s turn.

“You’ll remember him from the Opening Ceremonies, distinguished guests, as the one and only _Andromeda_!” Julian roared, and the crowd echoed his sentiment. “Please help me welcome Juno Steel from District Three.”

He had no choice. He walked onto the stage.

“Thank you for joining us, Juno,” Julian said kindly as Juno sat.

Juno nodded. Remembered to seal away his hatred. He tried to put on that façade of a loyal citizen of Mars. But _damn_ , looking out into the crowd, seeing the faces painted with thousands of absurd colors. They tried to conform to one ideal beauty standard, their clothing wild and unnecessary, and were just looking for their evening’s entertainment. Juno felt a fresh surge of hatred.

These unfeeling, uncaring people put him here. All of them were at fault, but none other than Lorenzo Vega, sitting just there, off to the side, with his horde of Gamemakers and officials, smug smile and all.

_What the_ _hell_. This interview counted for shit in the end, no matter what Ramses had said. He was going to die anyway.

 “Juno, if I may say, you were absolutely stunning as Andromeda that first night. Absolutely _stunning_.”

He didn’t try to hide the fact that he didn’t want to be there on that goddamn stage. He didn’t even bother to force a smile onto his face. “Wasn’t my dress.”

“How was it,” Julian continued, leaning in, “being the literal face of District Three’s most famous product? I’m sure you grew up on the stories of _Andromeda and the Dragon_. Those tales touched all of our hearts, now didn’t they?” He turned to the audience, raising his eyebrows, and the crowd cheered. Juno felt sick, _because Sarah Steel’s stories were in his veins and his chest and he couldn’t escape them._

He gritted his teeth. “Not all of our hearts.”

Julian shifted impatiently under the upset tittering of the crowd. “Correct me if I’m mistaken, Juno, but you have a fun little connection to Andromeda, don’t you? Your last name is so very similar to, oh, what was her name?” Juno’s stomach churned. _God, no._ “That Northstar Entertainment designer all those years ago. She made the Turbo series with Jack Takano, didn’t she? And _he_ went on to make Andromeda! Sylvia…Sophia…?” He trailed off, looking to Juno to finish the question.

Well. Juno wasn’t going to help. He pressed his lips together and just stared at Julian.

“Sarah Steel!” Julian snapped his fingers, finally getting it, and Juno’s heart sank. “What a fantastic woman. What _incredible_ stories she came up with. Tell me, Juno, what’s the connection there?”

“She’s my mother,” Juno said sharply, and _shit_ , his hands were shaking, weren’t they?

Julian’s mouth dropped open. “Now, that’s amazing. I’m sure you have some incredible stories of your own to tell us about her.” He sat expectantly sat on the literal edge of his seat. The crowd hushed. Waiting.

(Juno had been four years old when Sarah Steel had decided everything was his fault.

The day Andromeda was released, Ma had shut herself in her room as the ticker on every news stream in the city announced that Jack Takano, and Jack Takano alone, had developed the Chainmail Warrior. For hours, Juno and Benzaiten had heard nothing but a steady stream of clinking bottles and muffled curses. The shadows had grown long in the city when Juno finally had knocked on her door, and asked in his child’s voice when she was going to come tell them a bedtime story.

That was first time Sarah Steel had raised a hand against her children.)

He merely smiled a roughish smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sure I could.”

Julian clucked his tongue at Juno. “Not even telling one story. Impressive, Juno. Keeping to that Northstar confidentiality agreement.”

“Who says I signed one?”

A chuckle rose out of the audience, before Julian turned serious. “Now, Juno,” Julian said softly, and took Juno’s hand in his. Juno froze at his touch. “You volunteered for the Games. That’s rather unusual. Tell me, Juno, what helped you make that decision?”

“It was my brother,” Juno said dully, not looking at Julian. “I had to.” _Because if he didn’t, he didn’t know how he could have lived with himself._

“Do you have any other siblings, Juno?”

“No.”

Julian patted Juno’s hand condescendingly, looking out to the audience, waiting for their reaction. And…there it was. _Goddamn_ , Juno hated patronization. “Are you and your brother close?”

“What do you think?”

His interviewer pushed ahead. “In those final moments together, just after you volunteered, Juno, what did you say to him?”

“Well, I really shouldn’t say.”

Julian scooted closer to the edge of his chair, if that were possible. “You can trust me, Juno.”

Juno took a deep breath. “I told him, Julian,” he said, drawing it out just a little more, just to see the Julian’s anticipation. _God, that man was practically bouncing in his seat_. “That there’s a map to the fortune hidden in a safe, and I hid the keys to the safe in the—”

“Come on, Juno,” Julian interrupted, asking one last time, eyes wide. “What did you _really_ say?”

Juno paused, considering. He didn’t owe Julian a thing. Or this Capitol. Or the other tributes or Lorenzo Vega or hell, even goddamn Pilot Pereyra.

But he could play their game. He could acquiesce them. It would be easier that pushing back, like he’d always done. Against his teachers, this older kids on the street, his mother.

“That I’d see him later,” he said finally, and he heard the crowd sigh sadly in response.

_Like always, Benzaiten._

“Then I hope you make it home for him,” Julian said, smiling, content with pulling at least one answer out of him. He stood with a flourish, taking Juno with him, and announced, one last time, “Juno Steel, everyone. Juno Steel, from District Three!”

The crowd roared its approval, but _you deserve this_ , _you little monster, I knew you would never amount to anything, better you than Benzaiten,_ roared louder in his mind.

* * *

Ramses put a hand around Juno’s shoulders as they headed back to District Three’s suite. “I’m not sure if I’d call that charming the Capitol, Juno—”

“Hey, I—”

“—but you were honest,” Ramses continued, “and that counts for something.”

Juno scoffed. “Honesty never won anyone anything.”

“The Capitol will remember you in the Games, Juno.”

“Just because of goddamn Andromeda.”

Ramses turned to him, and Juno looked into those deep, deep blue eyes. “You have something Mars hasn’t seen in a long while, Juno.”

“What, being related to—”

“No, Juno,” he interrupted softly. “Your resilience.”

Juno raised an eyebrow. “Not sure I’d call it that.”

“I would. You can do some good in this world still, Juno. Remember that,” Ramses said, releasing Juno. He turned to go. “I have some matters to take care of before tomorrow, but I will see you before the Games. Get some sleep.”

Juno swallowed hard. “Sure.”

Ramses turned his back, and Juno made his way to his room alone, for the last time. His bones were weary, and _shit_ he wanted to sleep. He turned the corner, ready to collapse into bed, but a young man lounged in the hallway of District Three’s suite. His lithe body eased against the wall. Blocking Juno’s way.

“Having a pleasant night, Juno?” Nureyev asked, his tone as light as a feather. “Ready for tomorrow?”

Juno crossed his arms. “What do you think?”

That shark’s smile was back. “What, you don’t love just _everyone_ knowing your deepest secrets?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Well, I, for one, enjoyed your interview,” Nureyev said, leaning a bit closer. Juno had to stop himself from mirroring the action. “Are you really related to Andromeda herself?”

That caught him off-guard. “Andromeda isn’t real, Nurey—”

He smoothly cut Juno off with a laugh. “Oh, I know, Juno. I know.” _He meant Sarah_ , and didn’t Juno know it.

Juno felt the anger rise in his blood. _Damn them all_. He found himself saying, “what was your interview, anyway?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Nureyev feigned innocence, and _damn_ , didn’t that just make Juno run warmer.

“Who the _hell_ is Rex Glass?” Juno hissed.

His smile spread wider. He extended his hand to Juno, a peace offering. Juno ignored it. “Rex Glass,” he said with a little bow. “At your service.”

“If you’re Rex Glass, then who’s Pete—”

“Juno,” Nureyev said with a subtle shake of his head. His gaze flicked up, to the security cameras. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Then why—”

“Juno,” he repeated. Juno finally looked at him. “I am who I said I am. I have never lied to you.”

Nureyev stared at him intently, waiting.

_All right_. Peter Nureyev it was.

Juno slowly nodded, and Nureyev’s tense posture finally relaxed. “Good to know we’re on the same page,” Nureyev said softly, stepping closer, and for a moment all Juno could smell was that otherworldly cologne.

He wanted to swim in that scent.

“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Nureyev said after a moment.

Juno blinked. He _was_ leaning into Nureyev. They were inches apart, now. Juno could have closed that gap in moment. “What is?”

“That we had to meet here,” he continued, and those bright eyes sparkled. “In the Games. I think we’d have made a great pair, don’t you?”

Juno stepped closer, closed that gap between their bodies, and kissed him.

_Goddamn_ , it was stupid and impulsive and Juno knew next to nothing about this man but Juno was, in all likelihood, going to die tomorrow, and Peter Nureyev tasted like all the heavenly bodies rotating in that beautiful sky outside the dome. He was oxygen and nitrogen and phosphorus—all the essential elements were mixed up in the cocktail of the cosmos in that kiss. Juno wanted to taste him for every minute. It was the type of kiss that lasted forever and a day and an instant all at once.

Nureyev smiled into Juno’s mouth as they parted. “I suppose I’ll take that as a yes.”

It was the kind of kiss for the end, and Juno found he didn’t have any words.

“Well,” Nureyev said quietly, stepping back from Juno’s door. “As they say back in New Kinshasha: may your friends be true and aim be truer.”

Juno cleared his throat. “…what?”

“Good luck tomorrow, Juno,” he said, and his voice carried that note of finality. Competitors once more. “I can’t say I won’t kill you, but I do hope you make it.”

Juno swallowed. “You as—you as well, Glass.”

Nureyev nodded, and with a sad smile, turned on his heel.

* * *

The morning of the Games had dawned bright, the sun radiating through the crystal-clear dome of the Capitol. Ramses had met Juno just outside his room in their suite, Juno already dressed in the sensible clothes of the arena. Rugged boots, a tan jacket with an array of pockets, the shoulder embossed with Juno’s district.

The clothes he’d die in.

“Are you ready, Juno?” Ramses asked softly as they waited underneath the Arena.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” Juno muttered, twisting his hands. “Don’t even have a token.”

Ramses’s mouth set into a thin line. “Not everyone does, Juno.”

“It would have been nice, though, wouldn’t it?” Juno shot back, and it was all nerves. “Something to mail my brother back when it’s all over. But it’s not like she would have allowed it, anyway. Not like we had anything she’d give to me. Hell, she didn’t even come see me—”

“Juno.”

He pushed ahead. “But it would have been nice, right? Something for him to get besides that tiny silver box from the Capitol. Damn, do they even ask about burial preferences? Seems a little presumptuous to—”

“Juno,” Ramses repeated. “The cylinder is going to open any minute now.”

Juno stilled. “Right.”

“Your chances rise exponentially every minute you’re alive. Make it out of the bloodbath. Find water; food if you can. Find your allies. Miss Wire is quite competent; she’ll be fine. Rita and Mister Mercury should make it out if they’re smart.”

A nervous laugh pulled its way out of Juno’s chest. “Mick’s a walking disaster.”

On the other side of the room, the cylinder whirred, air hissing as the door opened. “Forty-five seconds,” said a pleasant voice.

Juno’s smile disappeared. This was going to happen whether Juno liked it or not. His heart beat its protest in his ears with its steady rhythm.

This was happening.

“Listen to me, Juno,” Ramses said softly. “You’re my partner in good. You can push through this. You have so much to give to Mars. To Hyperion City.”

Juno couldn’t breathe.

“Thirty seconds.”

“It’s time, Juno,” Ramses said. “Come home for your brother. Come home to do good.”

Juno stepped into the cylinder slowly. It sealed behind him with a depressurizing hiss, and he turned back to face his mentor. “You’ll get all the credit if I don’t.”

His voice was muffled behind the glass as he replied with a smile, “We can split it evenly, 70-30.”

Juno didn’t have time to think of a retort before the cylinder shot up.

His first look inside the dome of the Arena was a Martian wasteland. Capitol-generated scraggly brush and trees extended just beyond the clearing of the Cornucopia. Getting deeper and denser just behind Juno, where the ground sloped gently downwards. That same deep red pigment stained the earth beneath Juno’s platform. To his left stood Rita, shaking, tiny and determined. She looked over with wide eyes as the clock ticked down from fifteen, then fourteen ( _Juno knew better than to step off the platform early_ ). To his right stood Cecil Kanagawa, his bionic arm making a fist. He didn’t spare a glance to Juno; he and his sister looked deadly and ready and _goddamn Juno was going to die here_.

Juno quickly spotted the well-equipped blaster lay on the ground just a little too far away, just a little closer to the Cornucopia than he’d like.

His breaths rose quick and fast in his chest now, coming easily, the anticipation coursing through his veins. He curled and uncurled his hands.

Seven, six.

And there he was, two platforms down from Juno, just next to Cassandra Kanagawa. Poised. Dangerous. Long, lean and sharp. He looked born to play this role.

Juno locked eyes with Peter Nureyev just as the timer hit zero. Juno swore he smelled that cologne for the briefest of instances.

The canon fired, and the 93rd Hunger Games began.


	5. still-warm blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Games begin. Also featuring: iron-rich soil, twilight's stretching fingers, and what the stars smell like if you get close enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!   
> Two things: 1) my thief boy is back, and 2) I can make no guarantees for updates, but please know I'm very much enjoying writing it, so don't fear that I've forgotten about it.

The timer on the clock displayed on the top of the Cornucopia flipped to zero, and twenty-four tributes stepped off of their platforms. The first spray of blood spattered on the already crimson soil in an instant. The curved dagger, deadly in Cassandra Kanagawa's hand, ripped across the abdomen of a tribute from District Ten.

_Goddamn._

Nureyev looked away from Juno. He watched him cross the Martian desert, all traces of vulnerability, gone. A weapon was just paces from his platform, glinting on the ground. He took the steps in lithe strides. Focused on the task.

He picked up the knife, and it looked so comfortable in his hand. Easy. Deadly. With a flick of his wrist, he threw the knife across the arena, and it found its mark in the throat of a tall, lean girl.

Juno’s stomach turned-- _god_ , the sound she made when the blade tore through her—and the canon fired again.

_Goddamn, he really was going to die here._

He tore his eyes away from Nureyev as an arrow, shot from somewhere across the arena, flitted past his face. He ducked, feeling every pulse of his heart in his veins, his ears, his chest.

_Focus, Steel._

There. _There_. In front of him. The blaster. Just off to his right.

No, no, _shit_. Too close to the Cornucopia for comfort. Too close to the typhoon that was the Kanagawas, leaving blood and bodies and destruction in their wake. Too close, too close, _too_ _close_.

Someone stopped in front of him. His mind whirled to a halt. His body screamed at him to run, to move, do to something _, all those years in Oldtown couldn’t have been for naught_ , but his feet were frozen steadfast to the ground. He caught a flash of wired glasses and a frantic face before he was roughly shoved to the ground. The iron-rich soil was sour on his tongue.

He heard a blaster card roll into place. Heard the gun cock.

Juno forgot to breathe.

 _Shit, shit_ , _goddamnit, this was how it was going to end, wasn’t it? Prone, on the goddamn Martian desert, executed by some idiot he would never see._

He felt every single heartbeat course through his body—not ready to die, not ready to die. _But better you than Benzaiten_ , whispered that voice in the back of his mind, the one that shared the same tones as _her_ , the one that taunted him and told him he wasn’t good enough, he’d never be good enough or smart enough or fast enough and goddamn his last thought couldn’t be of her, it couldn’t _, it couldn’t._

He couldn’t die yet.

Juno rolled, heart still pounding in his chest, trying to wipe Sarah Steel’s voice out of his head as the tribute above him squeezed the trigger. The blaster fired; he felt the heat of the shot on his cheek as it embedded itself into ground. The ground next to his head smoked with the blast.

He looked up into the wild eyes of the young tribute who stood above him. Looked down the barrel of the blaster, held by shaking hands.

“I’ll do it,” the boy announced in a thin, reedy voice, and Juno saw his index finger twitch as his heart pounded so hard it threatened to break his ribs. “I promise I’ll do it.”

“Don’t—” Juno raised a hand out towards the tribute in defense. Whether he was about to plead or fight or run, he didn’t know, he just had to do _something_.

But, then.

“Get away, you _monster_!” Juno caught a glimpse of a tan jacket, an embroidered _three_ on the shoulder as _Rita_ grabbed the ankles of Juno’s would-be assailant, dragging him down.

Stunned, his pulse raced in his ears. _Alive_.

Three things happened in quick succession: the blaster flew out of the tribute’s grasp as Rita tackled him, Cecil Kanagawa stabbed him in the back with a machete, and an intimidating-looking girl stole the gun from its landing spot seconds after.

Juno wiped the still-warm blood from his cheek as the tribute stilled. He tried not to retch.

_Goddamn, Cecil was still there._

Juno pushed away, quickly, trying desperately to find his feet as the blood dripped off Cecil’s blade. He tried not to look at the maniacal grin that was making its way across his features. His hands scrabbled for purchase in the fine red soil, staining his palms. His breath came into his chest quick and fast.

Cecil looked to his right.

Juno prayed to any god that would listen for Cecil to just _not look to his left_.

 _Thump thump, thump thump_ , went his heart. An anthem, a quiet protest. _Not ready to die._

Across the field, Cecil’s sister fought a one-woman battle against a well-built District Four tribute. She locked eyes with her brother, making a silent request as she wielded her weapons. With a nod, Cecil took off quickly in her direction, machete swinging at anything that moved without an ounce of fear.

Juno slowly blew out a breath. He didn’t—he couldn’t—spare a second glance behind him as Cecil left, didn’t think about the spray of crimson he had seen from where Rita had last stood, didn’t think about the way she had fell to the ground, didn’t think about how Cecil hadn’t even wiped the blood of Juno’s assailant off of his blade before he raised it again.

He hauled himself to his feet. He did what years in Oldtown had taught him. When his blaster wasn’t an option, when quick talking or smart thinking got him nowhere. When Ma got too bad. When he just needed to get the hell out.

He ran.

His feet pounded the earth. His heart raced in his ears as he headed away from the Cornucopia. Away from the screams and death-announcing canon fire.

He headed down to the ravine with nothing more than his fists.

* * *

The branches of the Capitol-generated Martian brush tore at Juno’s hair as he slowed to a stop. His chest heaved. Finally, he could only hear the way oxygen made its way into his lungs— _still alive_ —and the footsteps he made, could only feel his burning muscles and the drying blood on his cheek. No bloodbath, no cold-blooded murder. Just Juno, alone.

He put his hands on his knees, and tried not to think about Rita. Tried not to think about the way Cecil had grinned when he ran past her with that machete. He tried to block from his mind the fear in that boy’s eyes as he looked down the barrel of the blaster towards Juno, and the way that his eyes had gone glassy, after. He tried not to remember that the now-dried blood on his cheek belonged to a dead tribute.

He tried not to think about what had happened to Mick and Sasha—he hadn’t seen what happened to them, but he’d heard too many shots from the canon.

And what about Nureyev? He tried to conflate the two different men he knew: the one that wore violence as easily as a coat— _the one that had lodged a knife in the throat of at least one tribute, so easily, so gracefully, with no ounce of remorse_ —and the one he had kissed.

 _Goddamn_ , this was a nightmare.

 _Snap_.

It echoed in the otherwise silent forest, that branch breaking.

His ears pricked, his skin crawled. _Shit_. He wasn’t as alone as he’d thought. He swallowed, hard. Curled his hands into fists— _that was all he had_ —and tried to make himself care enough to keep living.

Juno saw a glimpse of a Tribute’s jacket, of long hair, pulled back into an efficient ponytail.

Alessandra Strong surged towards him, a wicked-looking knife held loose in her hand.

His eyes widened. Juno backed away, quickly, fists up. Lost his footing. Broke his fall with his left wrist on a smooth stone. Sharp pain shot through his arm, but he looked up. Alessandra stood above him, knife out. Predatory. Prepared to do whatever she had to do.

Juno wasn’t shaking, he _wasn’t_.

“Steel,” she said, her lips set into a line. He saw her knuckles whiten on the handle of her blade. “Don’t make me do something both of us will regret.”

A nervous laugh found its way out of Juno’s chest. He pressed his hands to the dirt beneath him, finding purchase. Waiting for the right moment. “Pretty sure only one of us will regret it.”

Alessandra exhaled between her teeth. “How anyone puts up with you, I’ll never understand.”

“You’re not the first to tell me that, Strong.”

“Don’t get a big head about it,” she shot back, readjusting her hold on her knife. “It’s not personal.”

“Hey, my head is perfectly normal.”

Alessandra sighed, and her weapon lowered a fraction of an inch. “Steel, I—”

 _There. A second of hesitation._ Juno quickly pushed himself off the ground, ignoring the pain shooting through his arm. Tried to find his balance as he did.

Alessandra was there. Ready.

His feet came out from under him as she shoved him backwards. Followed him down as he fell, again, deflecting his punches. She straddled his waist in a twisted impression of a lovers embrace. Alessandra pinned his hands down with her knees and her free hand as he struggled— _goddamn, she was stronger than she looked—_ and held that curved blade to his throat.

Juno felt its sharp edge prick his throat. He stilled.

“You better make one convincing argument as to why I shouldn’t kill you right here and right now, Steel,” she hissed, pressing her knife a little deeper into Juno’s flesh. “I sure as hell am not dying today.”

Juno just stared at her for a long moment, feeling the blood trickle down his throat. “Just do it, goddamnit. Should have died a long time ago.”

He turned his gaze away from her, out towards the dome and the stars, even as his heart raced, even as his muscles screamed at him to move, to do something, _anything_ , even as his breaths came quick and fast in his chest, even as his mind raced and his vision tunneled and panic settled in on his sternum, sitting hot and heavy and uncomfortable.

_Made it this far, right? No way out, Steel. No way out of this one. Better you than Benten._

 (Once, when Juno and Ben were eight, Sarah Steel had decided once more to put on the coat of motherhood for an afternoon. She had scooped up her boys in her arms, much to their bewilderment, and whisked them away from the bright lights of city on bus ride full of melting candy and sticky fingers.

As night fell over Mars, the Steels had rented a cabin under a dome out in the wilderness. Sarah had told soft stories, of chainmail warriors and impossible quests, and for one evening, everything was as it should have been.

After Sarah had fallen asleep, Benzaiten and Juno had whispered their dreams to the stars. Their wishes for the future, for each other, for themselves. Where they wanted to be, when it was all over. What they wanted to be.

It was the happiest Juno could remember being for years.)

For a long, long moment, Alessandra pressed her knife against Juno’s throat, and he just wished for it to end.

With a sigh, she sat back, giving Juno a look, a _what the hell is wrong with you_ look. “Next time, Steel, you’re not so lucky.”

Juno blinked. _Huh. Not dead yet._

“Counting on it,” Juno said, and he meant it.

Alessandra stepped off of him, sheathed her knife, and held out a hand to Juno. He took it, pulling himself to his feet with a wince— _goddamn, his wrist hurt_. He pressed a hand to his throat. His fingers came away wet with blood.

“Thanks, Alessandra,” Juno said softy as she turned to go.

She looked back at him, and there was something in her eyes, something that said she regretted it, leaving him wounded and hurt and alive. “Damn it all, Steel.”

Alessandra turned, slinging her full backpack off her shoulder, and took a seat on a flat rock. Juno stilled, because _she had just tried to kill him._ She looked at him expectantly, and pulled two protein bars out of her bag. He flinched as she threw the bar at him.

He caught it, not without difficulty, ignoring her raised eyebrow. “How’d you end up with this?”

A smile hinted at the corners of her mouth. “I’m nothing if not prepared. Got rations for days, a bottle and water purification tablets, first aid and basic survival stuff. Some more weapons. I’m going to be hard to kill. Julian DiMaggio didn’t start calling me Cockroach Strong for nothing,” she said with the hint of a wry smile at the corners of her mouth. “What, are you going to stand there all day?”

“I—”

“Sit down, Steel, before I make you sit down.”

Juno swallowed, and sat gingerly on a stone across from her. Her lips turned down as she saw him wince.

“Did I do that?” she asked softly, gesturing to the wrist he trying not to cradle.

Juno stared at her, not used to anyone recognizing his injuries. “It’s fine.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot, Steel. I’ve got first aid.”

“Don’t waste it on—”

In one quick movement, she pulled out the first aid box from her well-stocked backpack and sat next to Juno. She grabbed his wrist and probed it with her fingers in spite of his protestations. “It’s not broken. You’re going to have a nice bruise there, though. Maybe a sprain, if you’re feeling generous. Shouldn’t have to cut it off.”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

Alessandra closed the first aid container. “You don’t need a bandage, Steel. You’re fine.”

 “Told you,” he said, sitting back.

 Alessandra flipped her knife in her hand. “So, Steel. You going to win the Games?”

The ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “Doubt it.”

“Why’s that?”

Juno held up the snack she’d given him. “Death by protein bar seems pretty unlikely.”

She weighed something in her mind. He saw the moment she made her decision. Alessandra flipped the knife in her hand, offering it to him. “I’ve got more than enough weapons.”

“I don’t have anything to give you.” Juno shrank back, just a hair. He knew an uneven deal when he saw one. Debt was one thing he tried to avoid when he could.

She shot him another look, another _what the hell is wrong with you_ look. “I know. I’m trying to help you not die out here, Steel.”

“You just tried to kill me.”

“I didn’t follow through, did I?” Alessandra said, raising an eyebrow. “Look, just take the knife before I reconsider my offer.”

He reached out. “You sure?”

“Yeah. Keep it, Steel. As long as you don’t kill me, I don’t care what you do with it.”

“If you have a blaster in that bag of yours,” Juno said, pocketing the knife, “I’d take that too.”

“You’re good with a blaster, right? I saw you that day in training.”

“The best,” Juno deadpanned. He wasn’t lying, and they both knew it.

That same eyebrow was raised once again. “So pretty damn average, then.”

Juno laughed. A real honest to goodness laugh. _It had been too long since he’d laughed like that._ A smile made its way across Alessandra’s face as she finished her protein bar. She stood, slinging her backpack on her shoulder once more.

“Can’t stick around here too long. See you around, Steel.”

“Strong,” he said with a nod, and she was gone.

* * *

Twilight stretched its fingers into the Arena, casting tribute-like shadows everywhere it went. Twilight was different here, Juno thought. Quieter. No sirens rang, no neon lights reflected under the dome. No _her_ , no Benzaiten. Just the tributes, and an ever-present threat of death.

Juno tried to make himself comfortable on a thick tree branch—he’d swallowed his fear and pulled himself up a few feet to hide among the thick foliage. Protein bar tucked into his jacket pocket, knife clutched between his fingers, he knew it was going to be an uneasy night.

The chords of the Capitol rang out under the dome. A holographic image of the Martian crest was projected onto its surface, the coin-like emblem rotating slowly in the hologram.

The faces of the fallen tributes began to flash by.

Juno couldn’t breathe.

He knew these faces. He’d trained with these tributes.

He thought he might be sick.

There, was the large boy from District Four, who had always worn a brown jacket. One each from District Seven and Eight. The girl from District Nine who had received Nureyev’s knife. Both— _damn_ —both tributes from District Ten. The boy with the wire-rimmed glasses, who Juno had seen Cecil Kanagawa gut where he stood.

The screen shut off, the chorus faded, and Juno could breathe again. Rita’s face wasn’t up there. Neither was Sasha’s. Mick too, had somehow made it through unscathed.

And no Nureyev.

A smile flicked the corner of Juno’s mouth. Of course he had made it out. Goddamn, Juno hadn’t seen anyone like Nureyev before. The way he had _moved_ , the way his limbs had worked together so effortlessly, like life-threatening situations were second nature to him. Like he had been born for this role.

Juno missed his cologne.

He resolutely shook those thoughts out of his head. Nureyev wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. Like Ramses had said, his odds increased exponentially every minute he was alive. There was no way he’d make it through, no way he’d see Benzaiten again, not really, but he could damn well try.

His eyes were heavy, somehow, even with the leftover adrenaline still coursing through veins. He let them slide closed, lulled asleep by the comfort that in some other future, in some other galaxy, he hadn’t met Peter Nureyev in the Games.

* * *

The first thing he smelled was that damn cologne.

Otherworldly, that cologne was. Like sulfur and wood smoke, like a crisp winter’s day, like jasmine and honey, like soul-black tea and almond. Ever changing. Like what Juno imagined the stars smelled like, if you got close enough.

“Oh, Juno,” said his soft voice from across the room, savoring those two syllables of his name like it was a gift, and Juno finally stirred. He twisted around in soft silk sheets, content and cozy. ( _This wasn’t his bed, back in Oldtown, now was it?)_

Juno cracked open his eyes, and saw Nureyev perched on the side of the bed. He looked older, Juno thought. Happier. ( _He quite suddenly realized that he was older, too. He felt the age in his bones and his chest but his mind was clearer than it’d ever felt._ )

“We’re almost to Mars,” Nureyev said, standing. He walked to the window in the wall that hadn’t been there before, and looked out at the stars.

Juno buried his head back into his pillow. “Can’t a lady get some sleep?”

Nureyev turned around, that sharp smile on his face, and _god_ Juno just wanted to kiss him. “If it’s for your beauty, my dear detective, then you don’t need it.”

Juno groaned, but pushed himself out of bed, taking the sheet with him as he realized he was, in fact, naked. He pulled himself close to Nureyev. “We could have stayed in bed longer,” Juno said grumpily. ( _He knew it was true, what had just transpired between them, the same way he knew the Martian desert was red._ )

Nureyev kissed the top of Juno’s head. “But then you wouldn’t see Mars, Juno.”

“Who says I wanted to see Mars when we could have been—”

He took Juno’s hands in his, and Juno saw the matching rings. “We’re almost home, Juno.”

Juno looked out the porthole as he felt Nureyev leave his side, mourning every second he was gone, and saw the great Red Planet. Saw the minute golden domes populating her surface, saw her vast dunes and craters, just as he’d seen Mars in his science classes back in Oldtown. A tiny rotating rock in the sky, holding too much corruption and pain and— _no, that wasn’t quite right, was it?_ No, Juno knew Hyperion City’s problems were fixed. He was sure of it.

He turned around, a smile on his face. “Nureyev, I—”

And froze.

Because there, glinting silver and sharp in his hand, was a knife.

“We’re almost home, Juno,” said Nureyev, and his voice was haunting. “But you can never go home.”

Nureyev raised the blade.

* * *

 _No, no, Nureyev, please_. The words were ghosts on his lips. His heart thudded in his chest.

“How long are we going to keep this up, Cecil?” asked a grating voice thickly, as though they were speaking through cotton. “They’ll be there in the morning.”

Reality mixed with Juno’s dreams. _No, Nureyev was getting closer, no, he had that knife, no no no—_

“We’ll keep it up as long as I want, Todd,” said a second voice, and Juno heard some mechanical whirring. “I’m killing someone else tonight, and it’ll be you if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”

 _Oh_.

Juno was awake now.

Across the clearing from Juno’s tree, in the Capitol-generated soft light, stood six tributes: Cecil and Cassandra Kanagawa, in blood-spattered clothing and no worse for the wear; Miasma; two lithe girls Juno remembered from Districts Six and Nine, and one young man who looked like he knew how to use his body to get what he wanted.

“Cecil is right,” said District Six. “I’m not done yet.”

District Nine rolled her eyes. “Look, we can stand here all night and yell about who’s going to kill who, but we’re not going to get any of that done if we don’t get some rest.”

 _Shit_.

If they made camp here, Juno was as good as dead.

“Oh, you’re on her side now, are you?” The young man, Todd, whirled to face District Six. His fingers curled around the spiked bat he carried. “Where was your support ten minutes ago, Valencia?”

Todd and Valencia were nearly nose to nose, and Juno tried as hard as he could to even out his breaths.

A piranha-like smile crept across District Nine’s features as she watched the fight begin to boil. “I’m on whoever’s side gets me the most blood.”

He clutched his knife to his chest, his fingers slick with sweat. They couldn’t know he was here, goddamnit.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Cassandra said, drawing out the last word. “If you can’t stop bickering for one minute, I _swear_ I’ll kill all of you.”

Juno had to get out.

He glanced at the opposite direction from the group as their heated discussion dragged on, hoping, praying, that there would be some out. That where would be some low hanging branch he could grab, some soft surface he could jump to, as much as that made his stomach churn.

He scoured the ground, and then there it was. That same goddamn scent that haunted and blessed his dreams.

Peter Nureyev was standing not ten feet from Juno’s tree.

All he could think of was his cologne and his hands and his lips and what if he was with the Kanagawas and that knife that he held in his hand, that same one that was in his dreams, that same one that he’d tried to kill Juno with, _but that wasn’t real, was it?_

Nureyev met Juno’s eyes and Juno stopped breathing.

A hint of a smile crooked the corner of his mouth. He raised a finger to his lips. Paused for a half second, and then blew a kiss in Juno’s direction before he purposely snapped a twig under his foot.

“Did you hear that?” Juno heard The Piranha ask the group, and they all stilled, listening.

Nureyev stepped out from behind the trees where Juno hid, and threw the knife in that same practiced motion as before. With a spurt of blood that made Juno’s stomach turn, Todd fell to the ground. The canon fired, the group sprang into action, and Juno’s heart leapt into his chest.

It was over in seconds.

Nureyev held Valencia tightly, a knife to her throat, and Miasma, the Piranha, and the Kanagawas circled them.

Nureyev sighed, mildly displeased, as though someone had just brought him the wrong order of eggs. “This certainly doesn’t seem sustainable.”

“Glass,” hissed Miasma to his right.

“Miasma, darling,” Nureyev greeted her brightly. “How are you these days? It seems like it’s been ages since District One. We really should catch up.”

Cassandra lowered her blade for a moment. “You know we can kill you, Glass.”

Nureyev beamed. “Why, of course. But where’s the fun in that?”

“Where’s the _fun_?” asked The Piranha, disbelief evident. “That’s the _best part_.”

“It’s the best if they catch it on television,” Cecil chimed in. “It’s still such fun otherwise.”

Nureyev’s smile dimmed just a fraction. “Let’s make a deal, then, shall we?”

“How about we just kill him and be done with it,” Miasma growled.

“I let lovely Ms. Valencia live,” Nureyev continued, undeterred, “and I join your merry band of adventurers. Seems like a good deal, no?”

Cecil pouted. “That’s no fun. No jaws of death?”

Nureyev shrugged as best as he could while holding a knife to Valencia’s throat. “It is what it is, I’m afraid.”

Miasma shrugged. “He has his uses. He comes with us.”

Cassandra nodded after a moment. “Highest scoring tribute, isn’t that right?”

“The very same,” Nureyev replied with a little flourish of his knife. “Not to brag, but I’m _quite_ good.”

The Piranha and Cecil seemed ambivalent.

“Why the hell not,” said The Piranha, and Cecil echoed her.

All four lowered their weapons, stepping back, and Juno could breathe again, but also _what the hell was Nureyev playing at?_

“I’m so glad we could get this little scuffle worked out,” Nureyev said, and that bright smile was back. He lowered his knife, and Valencia pushed away from him.

“Took you long enough,” she said with a glare to no one in particular. “Thought you were going to let me die.”

“No great loss there,” said The Piranha over her shoulder, and Valencia nearly tackled her.

“I _am_ sorry about Todd,” Nureyev offered to the group. “He just got in the way.”

Cecil shrugged. “He was boring anyway.”

“Let’s go,” Miasma said sharply. “I have someone I’d like to find.”

“Ah, and who might that be?” Nureyev asked. The group gathered up their backpacks and weapons from where they had started to make camp. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance. I _do_ like to be where the action is, if you catch my meaning.”

Juno swore he saw Nureyev’s eyes sparkle.

“I will have what I want,” hissed Miasma as they left the clearing. “And I want Juno Steel dead.”


	6. words half-formed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first days of the Games. Also featuring: inverse sunsets, salmon flavored snacks, and the light of the ever-changing stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It's been months! Enjoy!

The predawn gray light filtered down through the tress by the time Juno dared to move out of the tree. Nureyev and the Kanagawas were long gone, their voices having receded into the whispering of the leaves, leaving only Juno wondering what the _hell_ Nureyev was playing at.

He seemed to slip into the Careers so simply, it was as if he had always been there. Dropping threats just as fast and easy as he dropped innuendos. In the blink of an eye, there was no trace of the Nureyev that had stopped Juno that night outside his door, nor of the Nureyev that appeared in Juno’s dreams ( _as if they were the same_ ). If Juno peeled away that layer, the violent Tribute, what was left? Rex Glass or Peter Nureyev or…something else?

He ate the protein bar Alessandra had given him and tasted sawdust.

The forest was quiet around him as he moved in the opposite direction from Nureyev. No breaking branches signaling oncoming tributes, only Juno’s footsteps, the rustling of leaves, and—

A shout pierced the air.

_They’ve found me they’ve found methey’vefoundme._ Juno’s thoughts blurred together as his vision tracked chaotically around the forest, taking in trees and shrubs and crimson red Martian soil— _was that from blood, no, Steel, get yourself together_. No Tributes, no weapons.

He forced himself to still, to take stock of the situation, when second yell resounded. It was closer this time. _Don’t be Rita, please_ , he found himself begging, and tightened his hold on his knife. Air was heavy in his lungs, heartbeat heavy in his chest.

There was a quiet hissing in the forest that was suddenly everywhere at once.

Juno’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

A green-tinged fog pushed rapidly through the trees, and Juno ran.

He pushed all his energy into it, racing away from the encroaching fog because Juno had seen the Games for years, of course, everyone had, and if there was one thing he learned it was that the Gamemakers were never lenient. But the fog, _god_ , was just so fast. Billowing past him, ducking between the trees, laying low. It stung his skin and made his eyes water. Whenever Juno took in a gasp of air, it seared his lungs and then sat uncomfortably in his chest and Juno _couldn’t breathe and his lungs were screaming and his heart was going to burst._

He made himself keep moving, even as the fog thickened, even as the edges of his vision began to darken and he coughed every other breath he took.

The other Tribute screamed again, and this time it was so close, Juno forced himself to turn, and there, _there_ , behind that tree, between those gusts of poison. Her jacket read _five_ on the shoulder, and she was shaking, and the fog grew thicker.

“Keep moving,” Juno coughed out, and the Tribute snapped her head around. She saw Juno, and her eyes widened.

She stumbled, coughing twice as often as Juno, a dry, heaving sound. And, cursing himself, Juno couldn’t just leave her. He grabbed her forearm and pulled her along with him.

His chest heaved. His eyes burned; his vision darkened. Juno’s skin was hot and sticky and uncomfortable. He wanted to pull it off. That sounded nice. Maybe a dip in a pool after, up on the rooftops of Hyperion, and he could lay on the bottom, and the sky would warp and twist above him.

After hours or years or seconds, they staggered far enough, or the fog receded, or it went to go lie on the bottom of the pool floor where the world would be quiet and dull, and Juno could breathe again.

He tasted the crimson Martian soil after his knees gave out, coughing out the poison the Capitol had fed into the air as the other Tribute did the same. He retched green bile until he was dry heaving and his stomach cramped. Juno rolled over onto his back, taking deep, deep breaths, staring up into the sky. The indifferent dome above still shimmered.

The other Tribute, the one he had pulled out of the fog, pushed herself to her knees. Juno glanced over. She wiped a hand across her mouth, and it came away green. With another cough, she reached into her backpack that had somehow made it out of the fog.

“What,” Juno managed between breaths, “no ‘thank you’?”

The corner of the Tribute’s mouth crooked at Juno’s half-mangled comment. He recognized her now, as she rummaged through her bag. Yasmin Swift, District Five. He had seen her training with Alessandra back at the Capitol. The girl who had grabbed the blaster from the air in the first seconds of the Games, the last time he’d seen Rita. Kept mostly to herself, it had seemed like. Stern, but friendly. _A potential ally_?

There was a quiet _click_ of a blaster card rolling into place.

_Goddamnit._

As fast as he could manage, head spinning, heart beating wildly out of control, Juno pushed himself off the ground. The pair of them were just out of the forest, in a dirt clearing overlooking a steep drop-off. A ravine. The crumbling Martian earth fell tens of feet just a few paces away in an inverted sunset.

Swift brought the blaster up to eye level, and it shook wildly. “I’ve got you cornered, Steel.”

“Seems like a nice forest to me,” Juno shot back. No way was she going to make the shot, not with her hands shaking like that. “I mean, I don’t like big drops, and wow, would you look at that ravine.”

The blaster fired, and it went wide.

Juno’s heartbeat spiked. “Oh, we’re not playing around anymore, are we?”

“No, we’re not,” Swift said sternly. Juno ducked before she let out another shot. “Look, would you just stand still? I’ll make it quick, I promise.”

“Yeah, no thanks?” Juno grabbed for the blaster.

His arms felt like jelly as he reached for the gun. Apparently, hers did as well, because the force was enough to knock her off balance. They rolled, trading blows too poison-weakened to do much damage, but Swift was made of tougher stuff than she looked.

At the end of it, Juno had eaten enough dirt to last him a lifetime, _thanks_ , and Swift stood over him with the gun.

“Look,” Swift said sternly, before a coughing fit overtook her. She wiped at her mouth again. “Look, I really hate to do this.”

“Real funny way of showing it.”

“I _am_ grateful for, you know, pulling me out back there—”

Juno sputtered. “Then what the _hell,_ Swift!”

She tightened her hold on the blaster. “—but I don’t owe you anything.”

They were just paces away from the edge. “This is a hell of a thank you for saving your goddamn life.”

Swift drew in breath to retort, to give Juno one last line of not-thanks before pulling the trigger. She coughed, and _Juno didn’t mean to do it_. She looked away from him for a split second, to wheeze or catch her breath, and without thinking, he kicked her with just enough force in his jelly-body to knock her off balance.

The blaster clattered to the ground as she scrambled for a handhold—a rock, a branch, a log—but there were none. Only the reverse Martian sunset of the ravine behind her and the clear, cool air.

“Swift,” Juno reached out for her a split second too late. “ _Swift_!”

Her scream faded into the forest as she fell.

The cannon fired.

* * *

After Swift and the cannon-fire, Juno forced himself to walk on. When he’d looked down that sunset ravine, down at Yasmin’s broken body dashed upon the rocks, he’d seen a stream. It took him longer than he’d like to admit to make it down the ravine, slipping on the loose rocks and grabbing onto tree branches that cut into his palms.

_God_ , Juno ached. His legs, from running. His throat, from not finding any water. His lungs, from breathing in that poisonous smoke. His mind, from pushing Yasmin Swift.

It was barely midday, but his eyelids were weighted with lead after he’d drunk his fill from the stream. The water only partially satiated the dull ache in his stomach in an all-too familiar way. His hunger was still there, but his stomach was full. His body, muscles jelly-like, sunk into the ground. The soles of his boots rested on the striped rock wall of a small cave in the ravine, Swift’s blaster in his lap.

(Bone-deep tiredness ran in the Steels. It was always in Ma’s eyes, after. Her vision used to be bright, Juno remembered, stories flowing from the tip of her tongue as she took her two boys on her knees and told them of chainmail warriors and raging beasts and how the light of the ever-changing stars would always shine down on them. But after, her eyes hardened and her shoulders sank, and her mean streak grew to encompass the planet.

After— _and that was how Juno thought of things, wasn’t it? before, and after—_ Juno had shouldered Benzaiten’s tiredness, because the light of the ever-changing stars always shone bright on _Ben_ , and Juno would be damned if he was wrong.

Ma got tired. She stopped working. Locked herself in her room and screamed into her pillow, and her boys, the same except one on a ten-second delay, put away their coriander crowns and towel capes. The rough loaves of tesserae grain began to dwindle from the table, and Juno learned to fill his stomach with water instead. _Better him than Benzaiten_.

Juno learned that lesson early.)

Just as his eyes flickered closed, Juno heard a branch snap behind the tree that had partially blocked the cave’s entrance, and _goddamn_ he was awake in a moment.

He flipped the safety off the blaster and peered around the tree trunk, blaster barrel first.

“…B-boss?”

And Juno knew that voice.

“ _Rita_?” He looked fully behind him, and there she was, wearing a backpack that was several sizes too large for her. Tiny and plump and looking only a little worse for the wear. Mud stained her left knee, and a small cut lay above her right eyebrow ( _and didn’t it just make Juno’s blood boil, seeing her hurt_ ). Her hair was still everywhere at once.

“Hiya, boss,” she smiled hesitantly, looking at the gun Juno held, and Juno’s stomach dropped.

 “Shit, Rita, I’m sorry. You know I’d nev—“

“Well, I don’t know that for _sure_ , boss, since you’re still pointing that _thing_ at me, aren’t you?”

“Shit—” Juno fumbled to put the blaster away.

“It’s okay, Mister Steel,” Rita said, and _now_ that insufferable beaming smile was back. She stepped closer and patted him on the head as he flipped the safety back on and tried to put the blaster away before realizing he didn’t have anywhere to put it, _shit_ , and settled for hiding it behind his back. “I know you would never in a million years.”

Juno pushed himself to his feet, and saw Rita’s brow furrow at his state. “It’s good to see you, Rita.”

She pulled him into a bear-crushing hug of his midsection. He could have rested his chin on the top of her head. She mumbled into his chest, “I’ve _missed_ you, boss. This whole Arena thing is _nothing_ like the streams and I’m _rather UPSET_ about it.”

Juno coughed out a chuckle, but _damn_ , Rita hid a lot of strength somewhere in her tiny stature. “Rita, I can’t brea—”

“ _OH_!” she yelped, releasing him.

“Jesus, Rita,” Juno said, massaging his ribs. “Warn a lady.”

 “You can _never_ warn someone about a hug, Mister Steel,” she said seriously, plopping down on a boulder in the cave. She pulled her giant backpack off. “You simply _CAN’T_! A good surprise hug heals everything. That's what Frannie taught me in the Capitol.”

Juno raised an eyebrow, but joined her. “Seems like…decent training?”

“I _know_ , _RIGHT_!?” Rita beamed, reaching into her bag. She pulled out a smooth metal canister, and Juno recognized it. A gift from a sponsor. “Why can’t we all just love each other, like in the streams, Mister Steel? Oh, I watched the most _dramatic_ stream the other week, boss, you just wouldn’t _believe_ it. There was this pirate, right? This—oh, OH—this SPACE PIRATE. He was off, gallivanting throughout the galaxy, and he’d just stolen this beautiful, priceless painting—” She unscrewed the cap of the canister and reached a grubby hand into the jar, “—do you want some pretzel bits, Mister Steel? They’re _salmon_ flavored.”

He blinked. “Uhh—”

She shoved a handful into his lap. “I got them this morning, and they’re just _heavenly_.” Rita tossed a few back before reaching her now salmon pink-stained fingers back into the jar. A small pouting frown appeared on her lower lip. “I’ve already worked my way through the ones I got yesterday, though, and _those snacks were even better_.”

“Hang on,” Juno stuttered, “how are you getting donations?”

Rita rolled her eyes, a perfect picture of teenage annoyance. “Mister _Steel_ , you just gotta be friendly! It’s not hard. Give it a try once in a while.”

Juno threw up his hands. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s hard to understand, boss?” Rita faced him. “Be nice. Get snacks. It’s an _easy_ business model.”

“That’s not—that’s not a business—”

Rita raised an eyebrow at him. “Seems like a pretty good business to me, Mister Steel. I get snacks for being nice, so I always get snacks!”

 Juno shook his head. She had to be sending these snacks to herself. There was just no goddamn way otherwise.

She scoffed and continued on. “So _anyway_ , Mister Steel, as I was _saying_ before I was _rudely_ interrupted, this space pirate was gallivanting through the galaxy, and you wouldn’t believe it, but he ran into a _policeman_ —”

Rita chattered on, talking about snacks and being nice and donors and the streams, and nearly everything but the violence of the Games. She was a little paler than before, a little more on edge, and maybe talked a little bit more than she used to, but Juno let her story wash over him. A nice distraction for a brief moment.

“You know, Rita,” Juno said eventually, as her story petered out (apparently the space pirate ran into this policeman, and they ran off together and it was _very romantic_ , _Mister Steel_ , even if it wasn’t very realistic in Juno’s opinion), “if you were going to try and kill me, now would be a hell of a time to do it.”

Rita looked aghast. “Well, I _never_ boss.”

“Just putting it out there.”

Juno tried the salmon-dusted pretzel bits. They weren’t half-bad.

* * *

They made a plan, between bites of salmon paste pretzels, protein bars that Rita wrinkled her nose at but Juno made her eat, and filtered river water—she fit a lot in that backpack, wherever she got it from. They’d sleep in shifts in the night, and Rita would kick him awake if she heard anything.

(“Mister Steel, I’m not meant for this kind of activity,” Rita had said, a serious expression on her face, even though her mouth was ringed with salmon-flavored pink dust. “My doctor said I can just eat snacks and look pretty and—”

“ _Rita_ ,” Juno had groaned, putting his face in his hands. He had spoken through his fingers. “Just—goddamnit—just wake me up if you hear anything.”

A mischievous look had been forming on her features while Juno spoke, and she continued, “—but my doctor _also said_ that I can shoot a blaster just like in the STREAMS—”

“Shh,” Juno had hushed her as her voice echoed in the cave. “No shooting my blaster. Wake me up. Got it?”

Rita had grumbled. “ _Fine_. I might kick you. I’m a restless sleeper, you know.”

“No, Rita, goddamn, you’d be awake for this. If you see someone, or hear something, _then_ you—”

“ _Oh_ , right. Sorry, boss.”)

Midway through their conversation in that tiny cave deep in the ravine, just as night fell, resplendent chords rang out across the Arena, and Juno and Rita quieted. The seal of the Capitol, the Martian crest, projected onto the surface of the dome, spinning slowly in the hologram.

Rita grabbed his hand as the first faces of the fallen tributes flashed by. Juno’s stomach turned, and he thought he might lose the pretzel bits.

First, Todd, from District Four, who had met the wrong end of Nureyev’s knife. Yasmin Swift, from District Five (The pretzel bits left his stomach upon seeing her face, and oh _god_ , he did that, didn’t he? He pushed her. It was his _goddamn fault_ ). A young boy, no more than thirteen, from District Seven. A capable and cunning young woman, Valles Vickey (who had greeted Juno back in the training room with a sultry smile that made his face go hot) from District Eleven.

And that was it. Four tributes today, gone. Never to return to their families. Thirteen still could. ( _Juno hated that his heart leapt when Nureyev’s face, with his sharp smile and bright, glinting teeth behind once-magenta lips, did not appear_.)

The screen shut off, and Rita rubbed comforting circles into Juno’s back.

Juno’s breath hitched at the contact. His throat felt tight. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s the Games, Mister Steel,” Rita said softly, her voice filled with melancholy, and leaned her head on his shoulder. “No one will fault you.”

* * *

They were walking through the thick forest the next day, trying to keep close to the creek that ran through the Arena, when it happened.

Juno heard the sound he most dreaded.

His brother, screaming.

“ _JUNO!_ ”

And it tore his heart in two.

_Goddamnit,_ Ben was here. Ben was _here_. _How in the goddamn hell was Benten_ _here_?

Juno whirled around instantly, heart pounding, his boots dragging through the red soil. He caught a glimpse of Rita’s wide eyes— _Boss, what_?—but he was off. Gone. Tearing through the forest, leaves scraping at his skin and his eyes.

He couldn’t breathe. Benten was here. His better half. _No._

” _BEN_!” he shouted, frantically, wildly, barely forming the words, _it was more of a scream, wasn’t it?_ “ _Benten_!”

God, he could barely see. Just a sea of forest and leaves and swooping birds, and no goddamn Benzaiten Steel.

_Had he only imagined volunteering for the Games? Had Benten still been Reaped? Were there two Steels, here, in this forest, the same stories running through their veins, the same horror waiting at home? Did the Capitol win, every time?_

_“BENZAITEN_!”

His twin screamed again, and _goddamnit_ , _where was he, why wasn’t he responding, was he dead, was his broken body lying in the forest, was his blood spilling out of his chest, was Juno alone?_

He whirled to a halt, twisting desperately, hot tears rolling down his face— _when did he start sobbing?—_ and where is Ben where _isBenwhereisBEN—_

Small, warm hands clamped over his ears. Shoved something hot and sticky into them. Juno twisted around, the word half-forming on his lips ( _Benzaiten?)_ and saw Rita. She looked shaken. Tears were rolling down her reddened face, Juno noticed distantly, while his heart screamed at him _where is Benzaiten, you little monster, you’ve lost him again, haven’t you?_

Rita just shook her head. She stepped forward, hugging him tightly, and Juno realized Benzaiten had stopped screaming.

Juno pressed his face into Rita’s hair, shaking, crying. Jabberjays flew above them. They screamed in Benzaiten’s voice. Juno couldn’t hear it anymore. He never wanted to hear it again.

* * *

“It’s just so unfair,” Juno seethed, hours later. They trudged through the mud by the stream in the late afternoon sun, making slow progress away from the jabberjays. The currents of the creek were loud. “The whole thing is so goddamn unfair.”

“I know, boss,” Rita said absentmindedly between bites of salmon sausages. (She had gotten a new snack canister delivered that morning, sent in on a tiny parachute, and Juno was still convinced she had somehow orchestrated the whole thing.)

“Like, what even gives them the right?” Juno continued on, barely acknowledging Rita’s response. The rapids roared in his ears, just like Benzaiten’s false screams. “Taking kids—just _kids,_ Rita—from their goddamn homes and putting them in an Arena to watch them die. What sort of monster does that? All of Mars is out there. Why do we have to be trapped in a death dome when there’s an entire goddamn planet?”

“ _Mmmphrg_ ,” Rita tried through a mouthful of salmon sausages.

Juno turned around. Rita was struggling through a particular muddy patch, one hand in her snack canister, her massive backpack hindering her. “Rita,” he sighed. He held out a hand. “Want me to carry the backpack? I’m taller.”

She swallowed her snacks. “I’ve got to put my snacks somewhere, Mister Steel,” she said indignantly. “And as I _tried_ to say earlier, that’s some risky sort of talk for the Games. We _are_ being filmed, you know. And I’ve _always_ wanted to be on TV, boss! It just seems so _glamorous,_ you know? We’re on the _STREAMS_!”

Juno waved a hand at that. “The rapids are too loud for them to hear our conversation, Rita. And besides, we’re not doing anything too exciting.”

She deflated a little. “Yeah, I _suppose_.”

“Come on,” Juno nudged her. “I’m sure you’ve been in the spotlight this whole time. How could the cameras resist you?”

“You really think so?”

Juno shrugged. “Why not?”

Rita beamed and went back to her snacks. She went quiet for a moment, her tiny brow furrowed in thought, before she repeated, “Why _not_ , boss?”

“What?” he asked stopping. He turned to face her again. The rapids were so loud, he could barely hear her.

She leaned close in an approximation of being conspiratorial, and Juno wasn’t sure if she knew how to be subtle. “What you were saying earlier. Why don’t we just go out there?”

“What, outside the Arena? I was joking, Rita. At least one of us is going to die in this stupid dome, and of the two of us, it sure as hell won’t be you.”

“No, Mister Steel. Why _don’t_ we go out there?”

Juno scoffed. “You and me, break the impenetrable dome and wander out in the radiation that will kill us just as quickly as this arena? Sure, why not. I don’t have any plans.”

“It’s not impenetrable,” Rita all but whispered. “Probably.”

“ _What_.”


End file.
